Genesis Be is a critically acclaimed Hip Hop artist, songwriter and activist from Biloxi, MS. Her catalog boasts seven original albums and her work has been featured in Billboard, Yahoo Music, LA Times, VICE and more. A graduate from NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, Be incorporates themes of social justice, sensuality and abstract minimalism in both her visual art pieces and her music. Her upcoming album and art exhibit, People Not Things, debuts March 2019 in Los Angeles. Her unique perspective explores and challenges our concepts of humanity, exploitation, race dynamics, queer identity and sensuality using multimedia. Her work is often self-critical and satirical at times. G.Be states "I am an activist because I am a hopeless romantic, I cannot hide my passions nor my pain. My concern for the disregard of the human condition overwhelms me as does the love, magic and wonders I've witness in our World. My art is the vehicle through which I emote" She currently resides in Atlanta, GA.
Genesis Be describes her new album and visual EP, People Not Things, as:
“a sensual endeavor that uses lyricism and melodic rap to explore my past & present relationships with women. The visuals of PNT explore femme energy in a multi-faceted way. In rap and pop mainstream, relationships between women are often explored in an exploitive or derogatory way. I wanted to create a realistic experience that explores the nuances of our relationships...the heartbreak, the tension, the passion, the fear, the touch, the transcendance.
The single “On Top” describes a past tryst wherein my lover was in a committed relationship with a man who allowed her to explore her sexuality freely. The choreography and vibrance in the video explores a sensual playfulness between two young women of color.”
People Not Things is a production house and social venture that aims to heal divided communities by developing and sharing tools that help us confront our unconscious bias. By amplifying the voices and work of those at the intersection of race, gender & sexuality, we deliver a unique lense to our audience, one that only comes from surviving & navigated overlapping institutions of violence and bias. Our services include facilitating civil discourse, leading meditation, producing original music and art, public speaking tours and curating traveling art exhibits. People Not Things appeals to this generations’ empath, empowering a population to unlearn the biases forced upon us by our leadership, media and family. Using these voices, our goal is to disrupt institutions enacting violent and oppressive policy against people of color, women and queer folks. We do this by providing our services and an intersectional lense to Americans who are seeking a better understanding of how their privilege and behavior contribute to these institutions. Our core principle is that all people are humans, not the labels that we ascribe to each other. We encourage our audience to dig deeper to understand the ways in which we are perpetuating division, benefiting from division and how we are harming ourselves in the process. In terms of product, People Not Things is a lifestyle brand that produces clothing using original art pieces, we sell and streams original music content and we produce/sell original paintings/artworks.
The People Not Things traveling art exhibit is housed by Strive Till I Rise/The Middle Project and debuts March 1, 2019 at Tag Gallery (LA). PNT uses Be's family history of activism and Be's personal experience as a bi-racial, muslim, queer, woman of color to deconstruct her own preconceived biases as a tool to inspire others to challenge their own. The art exhibit will have annual showing that will featuring queer artists of color and activist who are using extraordinary tactics to heal their divided communities.
PNT is unique because it only features and employs women of color, from the actors, choreographers, dancers, directors and writers. The majority are queer women of color, which Be decided early on was an important factor in the creation of the project stating “Growing up, I never saw women who looked like me or loved like me represented in the songs or videos on tv. When it was explored, it centered around the power and humanity of a male artist. I wanted to create a project where only women are visible, not just as a love interest but all types of women. This is not to exclude men because we have some amazing ones working on the project in production & engineering. It's just more of a personal passion project for any little girl who feels like she's not visible in today's Hip Hop aesthetic”.
Directed by Rae Maxwell, People Not Things, is part of a larger traveling art exhibit by the same name that features paintings, audiovisuals and childhood blueprints all created by Be. The exhibit debuts in Los Angeles, Tag Gallery, March 1, 2019 and will then travel to New York City. The music portion of PNT is executive produced by Be and Grammy-award winning engineer, Ebonie Smith, of Gender Amplified.
WHO IS GENESIS BE?
Our founder, Genesis Be (G.Be) captivated America with a bold theatric protest against the Mississippi State Flag that went viral in 2016. Publications such as Billboard, NY Daily News, ABC News, VICE Impact and more featured the young artist and activist, allowing her to share her message of racial healing, gender equality, and youth empowerment. In 2017, she was the subject of a Moral Courage Project documentary "Confederate Pride, White Supremacy & My State Flag" and continues to facilitate civil discourse to improve race relations in her home state Mississippi.
G.Be states:
"I am an activist because I am a hopeless romantic, I cannot hide my passions nor my pain. My concern for the disregard of the human condition overwhelms me as does the love, magic and wonders I've witness in our World. My art is the vehicle through which I emote"
Her unique perspective explores and challenges our concepts of humanity, exploitation, race dynamics, gender identity and sensuality using multimedia. Her work is often self-critical and satirical at times.
Her upcoming art exhibit "People Not Things" is a series of songs, videos, paintings, and poetry. It explores human connection and her own social, political and romantic relationships as a queer woman of color. She describes her artistic style a cocktail of "self-indulgent abstract esoteric conceptual resistance with a splash of social justice".
She defines Conceptual Resistance as "the exercise of challenging ones own sense of reality thus enhancing the ability to either see an object or event from multiple perspectives simultaneously or to imagine objects and events that exist outside of our mundane understandings of time & space."
The painting of "People Not Things" examines human behavior through the contrasted lens of the “Jinn”, our cosmic counterparts. All of the humans depicted wear hats and are often separated by ledges and barriers that they have created or that they have imagined. The “Jinn” see People with no gender, no race or political allegiance… nor do they see any other labels that we ascribe to one another. The emotions and behaviors of the humans reflect our growing exclusion from one another along with our thirst to be closer to each other… it also explores the capitalist approach to exploitation at the expense of black bodies, women, veterans, immigrants, elderly and the poor… all made possible by material objects, media, technology and our own internal struggle to recognize other humans as People… Not Things.