Otis Mensah releases his new single 'Like A Dog', a mellow, abstract-rap anthem that wrestles with depression and nostalgia. Nurturing the international collaboration between the UK lyricist and Berlin beat-maker the intern 'Like A Dog' builds on their signature Jazz-Rap sound with a playful bounce and catchy melodic hook. This single continues the #OtisMensahExists series that has seen support from BBC Radio 6 Music, BBC Radio 1, Earmilk, GUAP Magazine and more.

Credits:
Animation by Jim Spendlove
Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah
Instrumental music by the intern
Recorded by Otis Mensah
Mixed & Mastered by the intern

Like A Dog

God bless, here's another RAP HYMN with love,
"Garden Of Eden" in continuation of #OtisMensahExists

Garden Of Eden

and just like that, a new RAP HYMN from the church of existence is born to the archive in continuation of #OtisMensahExists.

"Tumbleweeds" also available on Spotify and Bandcamp:

With rich gospel-esque choir vocals, fluttery piano, epic guitar licks and dusty drum-breaks like a modern Griselda classic, Otis Mensah offers a unique performance of aesthetic jazz-poetry over the intern’s rawest production yet, breaking rhythmic form with lyrics posturing philosophical braggadocio ironically contrasted with existential dread as it moves through themes of capitalism & coming-of-age. Tumbleweeds trailblazes new sonic & conceptual grounds for abstract-rap from British voices.

Credits:
Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah
Instrumental music by the intern
Animation by Jim Spendlove
Recorded by Otis Mensah
Mixed by the intern
Mastered by Elias Koraus

https://otismensah.com/

Otis Mensah -Tumbleweeds

Solemn saxophone, sparse drums and gloomy piano chords: Otis Mensah’s newest single SWELL dips its toes in experimental-jazz waters, creating an eerie & minimalist soundscape. Concluding the #OtisMensahExists series that saw Otis collaborate with Samuel T. Herring (Future Islands) & appear on the likes of BBC Radio 6Music, Worldwide FM & Bandcamp Weekly; the final single marries Otis' abstract aesthetic poetry with production from Berlin-beat-maker the intern on this post-apocalyptic journey.

"SWELL" also available on 
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/4kkBy8O4LgFvQzeIoAIPlO?si=2132cd7c3ac14806 
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/swell-single/1597002336
Bandcamp: https://otismensah.bandcamp.com/track/swell

SWELL

That Mouth Of Rainfall (feat. Rituals of Mine)

buy/stream: https://bfan.link/bruiser-bb

ritten @otismensah
prod. @theintern

Cover photography: https://instagram.com/steph_oconnor

bruiser bb with the bounce of a mid-2000s classic takes sonic influence from the likes of early Neptunes and poetic influence from the raw unhinged lyric expressiveness of The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde.

The song explores processing emotions of shame as Otis approaches the vocals and songwriting with desperation and vulnerability and blues-esque melody and chant.

buy/stream

bruiser bb

buy/stream: https://bfan.link/sound-of-sleep

Written @otismensah
prod. @jackiemoonbather
mixed & mastered @theintern

Cover photography: https://instagram.com/steph_oconnor

Sound Of Sleep (prod. Jackie Moonbather)

'Thought of the day' is the second single from yours truly' Otis Mensah, taken from a series of coming releases, accompanied by the incredible production sound of the intern from Berlin. Not everyone is going to see your vision. Not everyone is going to share your perspective. Not everyone is going realise your potential and that's ok. "I meet people on my travels, on this journey I'm on, some inspiring, some mysterious, some serious ones, some are stable, some are eerie, some delirious ones, some condescending, confident, content, conniving for fun, some precautious, self conscious and some precarious ones. I wonder which one am I, while I look up at the sky, or am I all of these people combined, if I could perceive through your eyes, well do I even enter your mind?" https://otismensah.bandcamp.com/album/thought-of-the-day

Lyrics written & performed by: Otis Mensah
Instrumental music by: the intern 
Background vocals by: Bethany Holland
Instrumental mixed & mastered by Elias Koraus
Vocals mixed & mastered by Just Seppy

Thought of the day (prod. the intern)

Art is action. Free The Oppressed Mind. Nod your head out of a noose & shake a leg out of shackles. The new single #FreeTheSlaves from yours truly' Otis Mensah, about rebellion, and breaking out of a mundane, oppressed life. Lyrics written & performed by: Otis Mensah, featuring Tonia Victoria
Instrumental music by: Oskar Rice. Cover art by Morning People

Free The Slaves

Bandcamp

Free The Slaves Feat. Tonia Victoria (prod. NOMAD)

All songs from this project were indeed mind-crafted by myself in my mum’s house, where my journey began and continues. The songs were brought to life by the production of my brother, the intern, who mixed and mastered this project at his apartment in Berlin. 

“Mum’s House, philosopher” is an ode to the “colours of it all”— the oxymoronic nature of every breathing second on this piece of rock. This school of thought gives voice to the sunken place of sacrifice when we numb our code of ethics to make way for comfort and survival. These sounds are from a place that sees our philosophy depleted of sense, from a time when life feels like a string of contradictory truths, seemingly right in their own lane but, when thrusted together in the tumble dryer of life, seem nonsensical and paradoxical. 

Imagine consuming the soul-stirring art painted by an unforgivable moral-monster, experiencing its beauty and how wrong it feels. In the same vein, imagine giving over power to the nurturing caress of Faith that nullifies the voice of nihilism when realism calls for hopelessness because sometimes there’s an alchemy in believing against the odds. 

I hope this project brings laughter and contemplation. I hope this project levitates you from the cave of your manifested traumas, even if just for a moment. I hope this project inspires you to seek out the philosophy in the mundane because apathy should never dull technicolor canvases of thought. 

I hope this project paints vividly the absurdity in our reality and shows our own capacity to leave colourful trails of contradiction on our path of reason. I hope we can all strive to credit humility — the mighty shadow that darkens the fools gold glimmer of ego.

Purchase

Solar Eclipse

Outside the Cave

People

Buffer Rings

Otis Mensah's new EP 'Rap Poetics' is a continuation of his debut poetry book that explores rap as an intellectual art-form and potent medium of poetry in the face of a white-washed, elitist art world. Focusing on the power of vulnerability and artistic expression as emotional communication, 'Rap Poetics' is an ode to valuing art as activism in the face of oppressive systems. In the vein and nature of Hip-Hop, it's about alchemizing worlds from words and celebrating the culture.

released October 25, 2019

Mums House Records Presents: Rap Poetics by Otis Mensah.
All lyrics written & performed by Otis Mensah

Ted Talks
Produced by Daryl Donald.
Recorded by Michael "titch" Townsend.
Mixed and mastered by @theintern.

Cereal Box Philosophy 
Produced by @slopfunkdust.  
Recorded by Michael "titch" Townsend.
Mixed and mastered by the intern.

1 Euro Jazz
Produced and recorded by the intern.
Mixed and mastered by the intern.

Under the Bed
Produced by @jackiemoonbather.
Recorded by Michael "tich" Townsend.  
Mixed by Elias Koraus.
Mastered by the intern.

Blowaway Dream 
Produced and recorded by the intern.
Mixed by Elias Koraus.
Mastered by the intern.

Grand Finale Funeral Show
Produced by @bluestonetheminor.
Recorded by Michael "titch" Townsend.
Mixed and mastered by the intern.
 
All cover & single art by Alastair Flindall Creator of Kunstity.  Creative input from GRIT MULTIMEDIA.  Artistic vision & concept by Otis Mensah.

Copyright © 2019.
www.otismensah.com
www.youtube.com/OtisMensah

all rights reserved

Rap Poetics

Stream & Download

Ted Talks

“Breath of Life” featuring Future Islands' Hemlock Ernst... the first episode of a new series titled #OtisMensahExists. There will be a new song released every 3 weeks accompanied by original animations. This series came from a shift in perception. I began to emphasise art as a means of documenting existence. This is about mortality and ephemerality. 

Credits:
Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah and @hemlock-ernst
Instrumental music by @brelstaffmusic
Recorded by Oliver Harrap
Mixed & Mastered by @theintern

Lyrics:
(Otis Mensah) Verse 1:
Scared of the walls
merciless is Murphy’s law
mercy me and gaping sore 
from the core my fears pour
feel torn in every dream I fall
from the sky a lord was born 
to a pile of poultry on the floor 
falsely accused, my love contorts like 
Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk 
I don’t feel secure, I feel Shakur
every childhood portrait winks at me like 
they knew before what I never saw
wet myself, the toss & turn
home is you or someone there
that’s why I don’t ever leave the north 
The stairwell plays minor scale
my pride impaled and dreams for sale
leave me stale or see me sail
watch me sink or see me hailed 

My shadow’s disingenuous 
he dances without me and finishes sentences
has dinner without me and picks at blemishes 
I try defend him
he kicks at my emptiness
now I'm a degenerate 
face sallow with sorrow and sombreness
time borrowed, a novice that sold himself short
bleeding out in the corridor, ominous
drag crayons on mirrors now
dare I dirty his name
brave is the novelist
I sleep with the bayonet because 
sly is the orifice
Time is the coroner
live at the concert hall
every head is just turning and churning my stomach
a worm in the bucket, I’m nothingness
gobble the bullet
spit word out the gullet 
of godliness 

(Hemlock Ernst) Verse 2
Permanence perishes
When urgency’s arrogance becomes avarice
Life in the carapace
Lurking gloom cavernous
Phantom limb’s habits aren’t mine
but inhabit my spine intercepting my calls to the ghost

Who goes there most motionless at dusk
Who knows their most intimate approach
Impassioned

Oceans upon oceans upon oceans of passion, I’m pondering
Does the needle feel the skins prick, I’m wandering
I’m posturing
I’m floundering

Fostering fetishists whose love of language still leaves them shaking 
Whose lips mend bricks to build foundations
For lost outpatients
In sound proof basements

What troubles know me engross me
Uproot and Untooth me, leave me a two bit loosie in a blue sea— that few see
But it’s truth see

A woman’s body is not a carriage
A mans body is not a forge
Am I the coroner or the morgue
A quarrel of birds, or a diver for pearls 
Lost in a world with a cancer of morals
Un-abiding of yours
They’re not abiding with yours

But the answer is pure
There’s a pestilence that aggregates in our tired forms
Taking the shapes of engravings, encasings in iron doors
Our Shadows drag through iron ore
Our Forefathers, the architects of our dying shores
Fearing their collapsing gains but not mine or yours
But the lion sang a sallow song
Through the narrow noose of the lariat
In the dawn of eyes rose a chariot
For our rotten souls
How Iscariot

(Otis Mensah) Verse 3:
Trying to hide my sins in church hall
live your life and just join the circle 
anointed by toil and turmoil 
hands shake in the soil and surplus
I shake in the turf war
wear the weight of the world more
still riding the harrow
stress mixed with the marrow
feeling absurd in this circus
just thought I deserved more
If Marvin was murdered by blood
and Curtis danced with light and then got crushed
if Otis fell out the sky up from up above
then what does that make for the making of us 
still sunk by the death of the young
left with the crumbs
after all that is done
I’m still the old klutz
labelled as dust
never cradled as such 
but the fable’s a must
who knows what will become of us 
once the dreidel is spun 
and I lay awake 
360 days plus. 

I lay awake
holding my heavy eyes.
oh my heavy eyes

Breath of Life

Breath of Life (feat. Hemlock Ernst)

Greetings introspective documentarians! This is the second episode of #OtisMensahExists, my new series of musical musings and animation. "Internet Cafe" was inspired by the 2013 documentary "Web Junkie", a film about internet gaming addiction and a rehabilitation centre in Beijing, China, claiming to treat it. Elijah Bane came through with some mellow and minimalist instrumentation on this one and my lyrics take the narrative journey into a feeling of disconnection, the constant pathology of young people living their lives online and our collective social exhaustion.  

Sending love during these turbulent times,

Otis. 

Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah 
Instrumental music by @7643529
Recorded by Oliver Harrap
Mixed & Mastered by @theintern

Internet Cafe lyrics:

Verse 1 
I woke up in this internet cafe  my parents left me
 because I refuse to leave I stare inside the screen so deathly: 
I've been on kill streak and now my peers respect me
 I think this is my purpose and it’s bigger than an SD  
See I don't think you get me 
6 weeks of summer yes please
 I'll be signed in with my besties 
you see they know not to test me.  
You tell me that I'm growing up 
it's time to quit this game but  I can see that life's the same
I know you masquerade your shame
 on this quest for acceptance and with this character you play
 but say mature adults don't believe in dimensions out of space 
well this place is my home now 
my intension is to stay
 I mean my intension is to  
Ok let's play.

My parents threaten me with bootcamp like every single week
 my mum always complaining I don't speak
 but I don't feel the need everyone here just ignores me 
vacant no ghost in my shell  
but numb and nonchalant when I’m inside this story 
out of touch but torn and tortured 
know my friends are looking for me on this game map  
so I've been skipping school and found my way back 
 into this internet cafe my parents left me in
 in this internet cafe my parents left me
 with this keypad in my fingers and this joy in my heart 
sleeps not good enough to keep us apart 
nah
auto-save my avatar 
this mouse belongs in my palm 
sleep ain’t good enough to keep us apart.

Chorus
  I'd rather die if I don't level-up 
I'd rather die if don't level up, up. 
I'd rather die if I don't level-up
 I'd rather die if don't level up, up.

  I'd rather die if I don't level-up 
I'd rather die if don't level up, up. 
I'd rather die if I don't level-up
 I'd rather die if don't level up, up.

  Verse 2
 I met my girlfriend here
 one day we'll meet beyond this screen 
on this mattress I lie in sleep
 in the back of my mind I bleed 
I cover my webcam
 pretend I'm with you  and catch up on my dreams 
anonymity
 I’m ghost where I go and seize up when I speak
  I leave this room anxiety filled
I couldn't care if it's real
 my only potion and my parents in pills
 the only breathing freedom I get
 is it good as it gets?
 Derealisation
 abrasion
 feel that knot in my neck
 I'm trying to be anywhere not in my head 
in class with my heart in my palm 
the beat echoes through the hole in my chest
 internal personal identity apartheid 
a part of me's present  but pardon me for pausing
 a part of me left
 it parted like the lines in my head 
someone pull me out of the depths
 counting backwards as I drown in my breathe 
crying out but my tongue stuck and my mouth sewn shut
Don’t let those carved lines in my desk be the only thing that I left
 help me.   

Chorus
  I'd rather die if I don't level-up 
I'd rather die if don't level up, up. 
I'd rather die if I don't level-up
 I'd rather die if don't level up, up.

  I'd rather die if I don't level-up 
I'd rather die if don't level up, up. 
I'd rather die if I don't level-up
 I'd rather die if don't level up, up.

Internet Cafe

The political is the personal:
Rhymes like catching a coloniser on arrival on a rifle. 

Greetings introspective documentarians! This is the third episode of my series #OtisMensahExists, amalgamating new music and animation art. "No Record Store Day" was written at the start of this global pandemic and delves into a feeling of cabin fever; irritability and restlessness. Record Store Day was postponed but our deeper sense of disquietude was not, we all feel the turbulence, I hope you find therapy and solace in these words. 

Embracing the power of the loop with some psychedelic instrumentation from my long-time friend/collaborator the intern, this is an ode to that internal power struggle between ego and self-worth.

Love & earnestness,

Otis.

Credits:
Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah 
Instrumental music by @theintern
Recorded by Oliver Harrap
Mixed & Mastered by @theintern

Lyrics:

No Record Store Day

Greetings introspective documentarians! Wellcome to the “The Thinks"...this is the fourth edition to the #OtisMensahExists series and encompasses some of my proudest, most intimate contemplations & vulnerabilities over a soundscape of mellow hymnal rap vibrations by Brelstaff with eschatological visions translated by Jim Spendlove in animation form. An ode to the overthinker.

Love from the other side,

Otis.

Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah
Instrumental music by @brelstaffmusic
Recorded by Oliver Harrap
Mixed & Mastered by @theintern

The Thinks

Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah
Instrumental music by @brelstaffmusic
Recorded by Oliver Harrap
Mixed & Mastered by @theintern

40 Years

A continuation of the #OtisMensahExists series... Troglodyte Jazz is an ode to isolation & self-acceptance. I wrote this out sheer necessity and in the darkness I found humour and candour. I hope you enjoy these musings.

Peace & Love,
Otis. 

Credits:
Animation by Jim Spendlove
Lyrics & performance by Otis Mensah
Instrumental music by the intern
Recorded by the intern
Mixed & Mastered by the intern

Troglodyte Jazz

Otis Mensah (recipient of Jerwood Arts Live Work Fund & Arts Council England's Developing your Creative Practice) is a musician and multidisciplinary artist exploring the intersection of poetry and experimental music(s). Taking influence from the rhythmic and expressive freedom of Jazz, Otis’ work uses aesthetic language as an instrument to solo through themes of race, identity, gender and the body. 

Since being appointed Sheffield’s first Poet Laureate in 2018, Otis has sold-out their debut poetry collection Safe Metamorphosis published with Prototype in 2020, debuted at Glastonbury, We Out Here and Shambala Festival, as well as performing with the likes of Moor Mother, Nightmares On Wax, Benjamin Zephaniah, Lava La Rue, Mahalia and Little Simz.

Otis Mensah

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