Genius

About Genius

The Genius API provides programmatic access to Genius's content and community features, including annotations, referents, songs, artists, and web pages. Annotations are pieces of content attached to a specific part of a document, which may be a song hosted on Genius or any web page; the API supports creating, updating, deleting, and voting on annotations, as well as retrieving data about songs, artists, and their associated referents. A script tag is also available for adding annotation display and creation capabilities directly to third-party web pages.

Authentication uses OAuth2, and all API requests must be authenticated with a bearer token. Registering an application through the Genius API client management page provides a client_id and client_secret, along with a configurable redirect_uri for user authentication. Documentation lists OAuth2 client libraries for multiple languages, including Clojure, Go, Haskell, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, .Net, Qt/C++, Ruby, and Scala.

The API is intended for developers building applications that read or interact with Genius's annotation and lyrics data. Commercial use requires a license obtained by contacting Genius's API sales team; the documentation does not state pricing for licensed commercial use.

Key features

• Read and create annotations attached to songs or any public web page
• OAuth2-authenticated REST API (api.genius.com)
• Look up song, artist, and referent data, including an artist's songs
• Upvote, downvote, or remove votes on annotations
• Embed annotatable content on any site via a script tag
• Look up web pages by canonical URL

Frequently asked questions