O. T Genasis was born Odis Flores on June 18, 1987 in Atlanta, Georgia. He, however, was raised in Long Beach, California. His parents are Belizean immigrants.

He was first signed to 50 Cent's G-Unit Records in 2011 after catching the mogul's attention with his track "Jackie Chan". He later released his debut mixtape titled "Black Belt" in 2012. After getting dropped from the label, he joined Conglomerate Records which is owned by Busta Rhymes. Busta discovered him when he walked in during one of Genasis' performances and was attracted to the energy he brought out from the crowd.

Under the label, Genasis dropped "Touchdown" which features appearances from Busta himself and French Montana. He also dropped a series of well-received freestyles over songs like "No Flex Zone" and "Loyal".

Drawing upon a wealth of influences, from the catchy hooks and basslines of Atlanta to the poignant autobiographical lyricism predecessors documenting life on the West Coast, Genasis takes pride on not having a region-based sound. "I'm from the West Coast, but you can hear in my songs that they don't really sound like they're from there," he told Noisey. "I like to put myself in the position where I'm like I can give the [listener] everything and make a record that sounds like it could be from anywhere."

Genasis got his biggest break in 2014 after dropping "CoCo". The song, his most successful single to date so far, has peaked at No. 20 on Billboard Hot 100. It has also topped Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Streaming Songs and Rap Streaming Songs. Due to the success, Genasis re-shot a new music video for the sigle and released it in early 2015.

"That s**t ['CoCo'] is crazy... The great thing about 'Coco' is that for anybody who hears it, it just sticks. Everybody automatically just f**ks with it, so me promoting it and doing all that I can for it is going to be a plus," he explained.