Otis Mensah

Otis Mensah is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist whose work spans across fields of literature and sound, exploring the aesthetic fabric of language and cadence to evoke ethereal portraits of the body, family and notions of the Black church. Drawing inspiration from a rich lineage of sampling as an approach to their poetic-sonic practice, Otis derives musicality and multidimensional text from childhood, dreaming and nature.

Following their tenure as the first Poet Laureate of Sheffield, UK, Otis has had a diverse calibre of experience in contemporary art both as artist and curator; publishing their poetry collection Safe Metamorphosis with Prototype London, debuting at Glastonbury Music Festival, performing alongside the likes of Moor Mother, Benjamin Zephaniah and Little Simz and working with a range of galleries and festivals across Europe.

before the noise my cousin is the debut album from experimental musician & artist Otis Mensah entirely produced by the intern following a longstanding Berlin-centred collaboration. Exploring notions of youth, its transience and malaise, ‘before the noise’ grapples for a deeper sense of kinship and home as it journeys artistic-tribulation and coming-of-age with dreamlike sonics and daring abstract-rap cadence.