Amaarae Reclaims Dance Music With New Album ‘BLACK STAR’

Ghanaian-American singer Amaarae releases her third studio album BLACK STAR, a 13-track composition – which shows us that Africans do coke too.

Back in April, when Amaarae announced her BLACK STAR album, Amaarae (born Ama Serwah Genfi) was reportedly the first female Ghanaian artist to perform solo at Coachella.

Making history, she danced in front of the Ghanaian flag, dressed in all black as featuring a medley of Ghanaian artists La Même Gang, Eazzy, Joey B, Asakaa (collective) and more within her DJ setlist. She also got her hair shaved that evening on stage – a power move that had people raving. Amaarae was setting the BLACK STAR agenda mere months ahead of her August 8th drop – right then and there.

Breaking into global stardom with her hit ‘Sad Girlz Luv Money’ featuring Moliy off of her debut album, The Angel You Don’t Know, Amaarae made her mark and five years later, BLACK STAR is a far cry from that.

As intentional as it is experimental, it’s an ode to pop music, recontextualized under an interdiasporic study of different African sounds, beats and tempos.

This album is a smorgasbord of high grade Afropop futurism, all lying somewhere between the hedonism of luxury, sex, and self-indulgent euphoria. ‘Stuck Up’ and ‘Starkilla’ featuring Bree Runway and Starkillers start us off on a high-energy note with the hook repeating the lines ‘Ketamine, Coke and Molly.’ Think, Brat Summer– but it’s Harmattan, and we’re at a club in Accra.

Highly anticipated Naomi Campbell feature on ‘ms60’ felt very on-brand. With adlibs dusted throughout, ‘Pivot pose / Go / Bitch / Serve’, the supermodel gives directions on the runway that is this ego-feeding track with a vicious gqom bassline before finishing with the cunty lines “They call me a bitch, a villain / Controversial diva, no / I am, the Black Star / Pose.”

PinkPantheress joins Amaarae on ‘Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt.2’, a nod to Soulja Boy’s 2008 hit, and all about a slightly obsessive crush that switches between all-consuming yearning and dark fantasizing – coming alive with clubhouse melodies in the end.

Carrying a more baile funk feel, standout track title ‘Dove Cameron’, (bearing the name of Disney star), and ‘100DRUM’ are both produced by Alejandro, the same producer responsible for ‘Jersey Luv’ by GROOVY, accompanied by Kyu Steed.

BLACK STAR offers a soundscape of techno and futuristic synths on woven with elements of baile funk, highlife, Jersey club, Afrobeats, house, amapiano, azonto, asorkpor, hiplife and more – a message clearly conveyed through ‘Girlie-Pop!,’ continuing to give us this tasting menu of techno sound.

BLACK STAR echoes a familiar spirit of ostentation, sexual decadence but also vulnerability. The luxury, the opulence, the sapphic encounters she details as she oscillates between love and lust – are all seemingly ever-present by singing “I’m blacking out at the dealership. I want the Hummer / Suck her soul away from her,” on ‘Dream Scenario’ featuring R&B and funk legend Charlie Wilson.

Amaarae teeters a thin line of androgyny as a key element in her artistic expression, exploring sexual freedom and radical self-acceptance – despite many of Ghana’s anti-LGBT laws. BLACK STAR feels like a cultural reclamation of sorts – a homecoming, reigniting a synergy that had previously been strained.

The final track, ‘FREE THE YOUTH’ samples Ghanaian hiplife track ‘Deeba’, with flirty intro vocals in Twi followed by a deeper message of resilience and unashamed self acceptance for the next generation: “Day by Day by / I had to get it / Like fuck how you feel.”

With BLACK STAR, Amaarae reframes reframes techno, cyberpunk and pop music all under the African lens, but still maintaining her signature sound giving birth to something experimental yet calculated; a boundary-pushing catalogue of African dance music. “It’s time to take back the conversation and remind Black people that dance music is ours,” she says.