Musicians with Jersey roots are notorious for being hard-working and producing music that is confident with high-energy and inclusive of theatrical elements – from the rock of Springsteen, Patt Smith, and My Chemical Romance, to the R&B of Fugees and Whitney Houston.
Wowashwow approaches her music the same way – with a background deeply rooted from the Northeastern rock scene and a stage presence that makes any room sway physically and emotionally. Greenwood grew up in a Christian household in southern New Jersey, in a rural area where solace was found sneaking off to concerts in Veteran Halls rented by local bands that would soon change a whole generation of listeners. That is also where Greenwood found her footing as a stage woman, seeing My Chemical Romance in their beginnings playing heavy-hitting, metaphorical, dramatic songs that inspired creativity and individualism.
“That time era has molded and shaped who I am now as an artist, especially with my live show,” says Greenwood. “I can 1000 percent say, for me, growing up in that scene from going to the VFW shows that when you watch my live performance, you'll go, oh yeah, I see it.”
Greenwood has always paved her way in doing the same. She founded the rock band Rise From Ashes – a pun of her name, much like her debut release as a solo rapper I’m A Hashhole – was soon recording a fully analog album with producer and Big Black member Steve Albini in Chicago, touring with Ramones drummer Marky Ramone, and performing at former NYC club CBGB’s final show before its closing. It wasn’t till relocating to New York for college that she was introduced to the hip-hop scene and seeing Joey Bada$$ live created a similar movement within Greenwood as her upbringing.
“I mean, you know, coming from a Christian background, they're hard. But I'm blessed that they were very, very supportive and pretty much all of my endeavors and my journey and steps. And so I fell in love with just like the punk rock and emo scene back home and the influences of like Nirvana to also like taking it way back to like the Sex Pistols. And there's a band called like Suicidal Tendencies, and then like also Rage Against The Machine and Pantera. So all of those bands, like, really, really influenced me growing in terms of my musical influences. And then there were also elements of sound like Frank Zappa and Queen and Aretha Franklin. But then when I graduated from high school and went to college in New York City, I saw Joey Bada$$ perform live and went—oh shit, I want to do that,” explains Greenwood, who first saw Joey Bada$$ in a small Brooklyn club. “His energy on stage was so magnetic. It was so just like. Absolutely amazing that I just had to be a part of it, and I just had to really, really relate to that. So I started just really immersing myself in hip-hop culture and like going to battles and going to like different jazz events and like watching these artists perform and put like their heart and soul into their craft and all the while, like quietly working on my craft.”
While focusing on her newfound hip-hop career, Greenwood had also immersed herself in the cannabis community, becoming an advocate in both the New York and Philadelphia region, while finding motivation in that community as a writer and performer. Relocating to Los Angeles was for its cannabis culture, but the results have been Greenwood making her music a full-time gig and combining both of her passions. She is currently sponsored by Barcelona-based company Smoking Papers and has performed as Wowashwow at Elyon Cannabis and Budtender Sessions with San Diego funk band Heaping Teaspoon backing her. Heaping Teaspoon are responsible for the instrumentals and production on I’m A Hashole. The album comes from an idea Greenwood had in August of this year to create fresh songs from scratch and traveled from L.A. to San Diego writing non-stop with Heaping Teaspoon into September.
I’m A Hashole was produced by Heaping Teaspoon bass player Blapsmith and mastered by Vince De Leon (Bad Bunny, Lil Peep, Gucci Mane) and pulls from Greenwood’s emotions, empowerment, and self-representation. Wowashwow sings about her lifestyle with pride. She also takes pride in the production of the album, using Heaping Teaspoon's wisdom and talent to create a lush and musically funk background of synthesizers, flutes, guitars, and saxophone from the 7-piece band against her vivacious vocals to specifically emulate what her live show is like–organic and upbeat, much like her character, with elements from her rock background on tracks such as “Eyes Wide Shut.”
“I'm a very sarcastic person by nature. And there's always some level of sarcasm and comedy in everything that I do. So even the album title I'm A Hashhole because sometimes, especially the more that I keep pushing, you know, like and I'm very ambitious, like sometimes people will say as a woman being a woman and being very ambitious is a bad thing or like, ‘Oh, she's, you know, she's an asshole or whatever. And it's like, OK, well, I guess I'll call me a Hashole then,’ she explains. “I'm very proud of this album. I went back to my roots on this one and everything that you hear was done with a band as if I created everything live. There's no autotune on any of the record,” says Greenwood. “My voice is my voice and this is what you hear. So I wanted to give that level of authenticity as much as possible to give you that live show feel so that when you see me live like you have been bamboozled.”
Wowashwow’s first video off the album is for the single “Pu$$i Power” the biggest song about empowerment on I’m An Hashole. The music video, directed by Mich Page, is a journey showing both Greenwood’s roots reaching up to her fictional funeral that reflects theatrical videos such as My Chemical Romance’s “Helena” and in her words is paying homage to her musical influences.
“Part of the reason why I love this music video is that I pay homage to my musical influences throughout the years. So the way we created it is that it's essentially going to be like a Groundhog Day continuous loop. So it starts out as my funeral and, you know, everyone's sad that I died. And then in MCR style, I come back to life and everybody's excited and we have like, you know, a gothic dance party, essentially. And then it morphs into how did I get to this point?”
The video ends with everyone convening American Bandstand style performance by Wowashwow with friends from all walks of life dancing to “Pu$$i Power” leading back to her funeral. “People that are in this video are being themselves and just being confident about themselves that will make other people feel like, you know what, I am a bad bitch. You know what? Somebody sent out a CashApp. Send me some money.”
On its release day November 26th, I’m A Hashole’s was streamed over 7,000 times. A little over a month later and the album has reached almost 64,000 streams. If Greenwood was wowing crowds before its release, her newer live shows and her future videos, with an Across the Universe-type film in the works with Mich Page for the album’s concept and videos, will bring everything she’s got to show the world to the table. With confidence and a strong musical background that brings out all of her passions, filled with funk-infused beats and resilience, Wowashwow is making her path and a bold mark on the hip-hop world.