“Brown Supremacy” is the second single from Immy Owusu and is built on samples of legendary Zamrock band Amanaz’s classic “Easy Street” (1975). Immy and Amanaz exist decades and continents apart but a shared love of Hendrix-esque fuzz guitars and deep connection to West African tradition makes it a natural combination.
Immanuel Kwabena Dreessens-Owusu grew up in two worlds: the sea bleached lifestyle of Torquay and the Surf Coast of Australia. Immy’s father Kojo is one of Australia’s best regarded West African musicians and his grandfather Koo Nimo is foundational figure of Ghanaian Highlife.
Zamrock was a 1970s movement of Zambian artists who took psychedelic rock and reframed it in an African context. Immy says, ‘When I first moved to Torquay (UK), for some kids I was the first ‘black’ person they had ever seen before, and their first experience from any other culture that wasn’t their own. In high school I pushed away from people who looked like me in an attempt to fit into the establishment. How ‘black’ I felt was compounded by how ‘white’ I was treated by my Ghanaian family (in Africa). For me this song is my story about finding a place to belong.’
