Edwin Owusu is a lecturer and head debate coach at the University of Vermont. He also taught a course called, "The Art of Rap" at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire and next spring, Owusu will teach, "The Rhetoric of Hip Hop," at UVM. Apart from the syllabus, Owusu infuses elements of his day job when he's performing as SINNN.
The hip-hop and Afrobeat artist was born in Ghana, then moved to New York before attending UVM in the early 2000's. And the Burlington-based artist, who has been in Vermont's music scene for two decades, drops a new music project on Friday, Oct. 4.
Owusu sat down with Vermont Public's Mary Williams Engisch to talk about the new EP, Art N Depression, and how his life experiences and connections to debate and Vermont shape his compositions. This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Mary Williams Engisch: Your latest EP is called, Art N Depression. Where did that title come from, and how would you describe how your particular brand of music sounds to somebody who's never heard it before?
Edwin Owusu: Yeah, so Art N Depression, I think, is a culmination of a bunch of things that represent probably the best version of who I am as an artist at this point.
As you mentioned, I grew up in Ghana, moved to the Bronx — well, moved to Harlem, New York, first, where I was first introduced to hip-hop — but then later to the Bronx, as well.
So, hip-hop has always been a part of my life. But something else that's always been a part of my life has been struggles with mental health. And so as I've gotten older and have tried to find ways to deal with that, but also continue to do what I love, something that is near and dear to me, which is obviously expressed through the art form of hip-hop and being an emcee.
There was a real juxtaposition of having to juggle that, as well as all of the rest of life. This felt like the right time. It really does describe for me, a moment in time that allows me to speak to a part of my journey and my evolution as an artist.
Mary Williams Engisch: Why is it important to include tracks about mental health?
Edwin Owusu: Oftentimes, artists across all genres can be pigeonholed or compartmentalized to not just be just the artist who, also, is not a regular human who goes through things that the everyday person goes through.
But even in the journey of being an artist, that there isn't a real struggle there between what one wants to do — do you think that what you're creating is authentically you? Do you think that it is getting your point across? Do you think that it represents the art form, the genre that you're a part of? What will your peers think?
And these are all questions that I think all creatives across a lot of genres deal with. There were real moments and times in my life where I was heavily concentrated in one, where I either felt a real deep explosion of being creative, but was stricken and in my mental health struggles, and maybe not able to create from that place. And so now, this sort of came to me as a way to do this project, what it would be about. It just seemed like, yeah, that makes total sense.
Especially for artists, struggles with mental health can be insular and can keep us withdrawn. But we're also artists who give of ourselves and allow the world in in a very vivid way.
Especially for artists, struggles with mental health can be insular and can keep us withdrawn. But we're also artists who give of ourselves and allow the world in a very vivid way.Edwin Owusu
Mary Williams Engisch: You're a speech and debate coach. How does your work life complement your artistic life?
Edwin Owusu: I always credit speech and debate with being the person that I am, because my relationship to Vermont is that I grew up ... and went to high school in New York where I was a part of the Urban Debate Leagues. One of the prominent folks who was coming down there at least twice every month to help us run those debate leagues and teach inner city kids research and debate skills, was a man named Alfred "Tuna" Snider, who, at the time, was the debate coach at the University of Vermont. When I graduated high school, he extended an invitation to me to come to UVM, and I did.
Speech and debate has been a part of my life since I was probably 14, and has really shaped how I think about the world, my relationship to it, my place in it and my worldview. I think that I credit speech and debate with doing a lot for me and also my evolution as an artist. I don't think that I started out having my own voice. I mimicked artists who I loved, who I love the style, who were talking about things that were close to home from where I grew up and and represented those things. Then eventually, as I developed more and grew up more, I found my voice. And speech and debate was sort of a medium to hone how I communicated that.
Mary Williams Engisch: How does Vermont itself as a place and people shape your work?
Edwin Owusu: Of the places I have been in the United States, Vermont is the place where folks are most willing to figure it out.
That is not to say they understand each other all the time, will get along all the time, or that it will even end up being resolved in a way that everybody's happy. But they are most, or most Vermonters, are willing to at least have, whatever it is, the conversation, whatever that situation demands, so that we can try to process something, so I respect that a lot about Vermont. As well as the fact that, obviously, it's beautiful, and the people have been, for the most part, are incredibly receptive to who I am. Like I said, I'm the son of immigrants, and so I have a unique perspective on sort of how folks receive you.
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