GENA’s Liv.e and Karriem Riggins Put Their Creative Partnership in Focus
GENA’s creative partnership is getting a fresh hearing. In a September 29th interview with 95bFM, Liv.e and Karriem Riggins joined host Rosetta for a conversation about how they began working together, the making of The Pleasure Is Yours, and their upcoming performances in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
The timing offers R&B listeners a reason to revisit the duo beyond an album-release announcement. The Pleasure Is Yours arrived February 27th through Lex Records. This week’s development is the new conversation around the work: a chance to hear the artists discuss the relationship behind music that has already had time to find its audience.
GENA stands for God Energy, Naturally Amazing. Lex’s artist biography describes a meeting of Liv.e’s approach to R&B and Riggins’ background in jazz improvisation and beat-making. It says the two connected through a mutual musical acquaintance, then recognized a shared creative instinct. The project places both musicians inside a joint identity rather than billing one as a guest on the other’s record.
Liv.e is Dallas-born and based in Los Angeles. Riggins is a Detroit drummer and producer whose wider collaborations include Common, J Dilla, Erykah Badu, and Madlib, as 95bFM notes. Those backgrounds make the partnership relevant to listeners who move comfortably among R&B, soul, jazz, and Hip-Hop, without needing those styles to stay in separate boxes.
For a first listen, the album’s official Bandcamp page provides the music and track information in one place. Pairing that page with the radio interview gives listeners two ways into the project: the finished recordings and the artists’ discussion of making them. The interview is linked directly, so readers can hear the conversation in its original setting. The official video for “Circlesz,” an earlier GENA single, is embedded below as an introduction to the duo’s work.
GENA is a reminder that following R&B also means following creative relationships, approaches to production, and the decisions behind a body of work. Explore more contemporary artists and conversations in PowerPage’s R&B News coverage.
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