Otis Mensah

Otis Mensah is a British-born, Berlin-based experimental music artist working under a Jazz and Abstract Rap fusion. Otis’ music explores sentiments of queer love in a modern metropolis, and navigates thematically and sonically between landscapes of utopia and dystopia over multilayered, jazz-infused soundscapes. Otis’ work takes narrative form to delve into dreaming, displacement and notions of Blackness and Black-art aesthetics. At the core,  their songs portray the beauty and struggles of reimagining a relationship to self, the body and the city. Otis cites Pharoah Sanders and Beverly Glenn-Copeland as inspirations to their work; experimenting with cadence, timing and phonetics as the leading instrument into emotive and daring songwriting.Following their tenure as the first Poet Laureate of Sheffield, UK, Otis has performed at Glastonbury Music Festival, We Out Here, XJAZZ!, Fusion Festival and alongside the likes of Moor Mother, Shabaka Hutchings and Little Simz. Otis Mensah’s music stands strong in its lineage of Black experimentation with rich multi-instrumental textures, but distinct in a new wave of  gothic jazz aesthetics, delivery and storytelling.