Genia - Introducing (Garage Sessions)

What this video is

Released February 2023, 'Introducing (Garage Sessions)' documents a pivotal moment in post-pandemic pop culture: a young Black woman from the Inland Empire's High Desert using the tools of the TikTok era — a phone camera, a garage, and a social platform — to negotiate a deal with one of hip-hop's most storied labels. The 'Garage Sessions' branding directly invokes Genia's literal origin story (TikTok videos in her…

Why it matters

The video positions Genia at the intersection of contemporary R&B and hip-hop-inflected soul, in a lineage from Beyoncé and Rihanna but rooted in High Desert working-class realism. The self-directed black-and-white aesthetic echoes a documentary tradition in Black music video history while…

The director

Genia (Genia Simone) is a singer-songwriter-rapper and self-directed visual artist from Victorville, California, signed to Def Jam Recordings. She rose to prominence via viral TikTok videos recorded in her mother's garage during the COVID-19 pandemic. She…