Otis Mensah: »Tenderness and Cruelty«

Otis Mensah is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist working across fields of music and literature, taking influence from the expressive freedom of jazz. In 2018, Otis was titled the first poet laureate of their home city Sheffield in the UK, rewarded for notable contributions in the realm of poetry to formally represent the city during their tenure. For Pop-Kultur, Otis has developed an immersive live performance of new works and reimagined renditions of their album »Winterskin« released on Berlin record label lekker collective. Using aesthetic poetic devices and avant-garde cadence, the performance will weave together unconventional texture and dissonant harmony with ballad-like emotion imbued with »tender-chaos«. In this exclusive expansion on »Winterskin«, Mensah delves into the significance of dreaming and artistic expression as a catalyst for utopian designs of personal-political liberation. In subversion, Otis will transport the audience into a sonic and visual dreamworld centred on the body and its experience of racialisation and gender, exploring rich mythological and symbolic reference to hair and skin through live instrumentation, dance and poetry.

Credits: Otis Mensah (vocals, performance & conceptualisation), zoudé (vocals), Monica Mussungo (vocals), Tim Granbacka (keys), Daniel »El Congo« Allen (trumpet), David Matayaunga (bass), Dominik Szczepaniak (drums), Jamal Sterrett (film & choreography).