Black Star reflects the confidence, dedication, and versatility of the artiste behind it…
By Yinoluwa Olowofoyeku
Amaarae, born Ama Serwah Genfi, has steadily built one of the most distinctive and dynamic pop voices to emerge from Ghana in the last decade. Raised between Accra and the United States, she first gained international attention with her 2020 debut LP, The Angel You Don’t Know, a record that fused alté aesthetics with sharp, genre-fluid songwriting and propelled tracks like 2020’s “Sad Girlz Luv Money” into the global spotlight.
In 2023, she followed with Fountain Baby, an album that broadened her reach and confirmed her gift for pairing hyper-stylised production with candid, often playful lyricism. Across both records, Amaarae has demonstrated a rare ability to move seamlessly between Afrobeats, R&B, and forward-thinking pop, while crafting a striking visual and fashion language that amplifies the themes in her music.
Her profile has continued to grow through high-profile collaborations and major festival appearances, including a historic solo Coachella set in April 2025 that marked a milestone for Ghanaian artistes on the global stage. She has worked with a diverse range of cross-genre producers and artistes—from Kyu Steed and Bnyx to international guests and remix partners—making collaboration a central pillar of her artistry.
Now, in August 2025, Amaarae returns with Black Star, her third studio album, described by the press as both a celebration of diasporic dance music and a deliberate, high-fashion statement of identity and pleasure. The record leans heavily into club-focused sounds drawn from baile funk, house, and global dance styles, while remaining anchored by her soprano voice and offbeat pop sensibility.
Black Star positions Amaarae as an artiste equally invested in spectacle and style as in songwriting and cultural reclamation, arriving at a moment when her international momentum is unmistakable.
“Stuck Up” opens Black Star with harsh pluck synths and grunge-style vocals, bongos rattling in the background before giving way to pumping 808 kicks. Amaarae enters with braggadocious energy, reminding listeners that she was once a rapper: “Silent, I can’t even mime, nun/ I dropped an album, went Blackinum/ Your artiste was budding, I sacked them/ I’m a big dealer in real life, you just a deal on a track/ Okay, okay/ I move that dough like that”. Electronic dance energy courses through the track, with punk-style group vocals bringing it to a close.
“Starkilla” channels a techno rave spirit, its analogue bass synth joined by wavy synths, loose piano notes, and gated pulsing effects that lend it an old-school rave feel. Bree Runway opens the track, weaving in references to her Ghanaian heritage with a touch of Twi in her lyrics. It becomes a hedonistic anthem of nightlife, sex, and drugs, echoed in Amaarae’s trance-like chorus.
“ms60” runs on a rifling, glitchy synth loop with Afrobeats-inspired percussion and heavy 808 kicks. The simple, looping instrumental supports Amaarae’s trance-like chorus repetitions, before her first real singing on Black Star arrives in the refrain, delivered in her signature breathy falsetto: “Yves Saint Laurent/ Money will get you some/ You look good in nun/ All these hoes around me”. The remainder of the track is largely rapped with a modern trap cadence, interspersed with vocals from Black supermodel, Naomi Campbell, before closing with a full sampled quote from Campbell in which she name-drops the album, Black Star, over an 808 barrage.
“Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt 2” captures the strain of a digital relationship and the longing to be physically close to a lover. PinkPantheress’ breathy, sultry voice—often compared to Amaarae’s—blends seamlessly with hers. Together, they deliver gentle, hopeful melodies over bright, playful instrumentation: a soft, K-Pop-leaning arrangement with R&B-influenced pad chords and sparkling synth accents.
A thumping analogue bass and four-to-the-floor kicks sustain the house motif: “It’s been a while so/ I really can’t remember what you look like, oh no/ I know very well/ I might not see you anymore, in material/ Why we take so long?/ I’m not hanging up, could replace your love”. The track’s closing section shifts into Euro-dance territory, driven by a singular melodic synth and full house drums.
“B2B” recounts a roller-coaster relationship marked by emotion, change, lust, and desire. This is the Amaarae her audience knows and loves: sweet melodies carried over smooth pads, swirling synths, and percussion-heavy dance drums with rattling hi-hats, shakers, and thumping kicks. A pulsating saw synth powers the arrangement before an instrumental switch into a dreamy, cinematic, guitar-led section underscored by sweeping strings.
Here, Amaarae’s voice takes on a lamenting tone, confronting the reality of a bad romantic fit: “Missing all the kiss and sloppies/ You really wanna slit and stop my heart/ Smoking on us, I’m nodding/ Dirty, you wish and wash my heart/ You’ll never see me cry/ Are you my virtue or vice?”
“She Is My Drug” continues the themes of “B2B”, even carrying over its refrain. Filtered pads and arpeggiated synths meet chugging synth bass and layered Afrobeats percussion, evoking the comedown of a romance like the comedown after drugs: “Do you believe in love off the drugs?/ I can feel the rush and I lean into you/ I really don’t think you’re strong enough, oh/ Do you believe in love off the drugs?” This serves as a quieter interlude, momentarily stepping away from the techno pulse and allowing emotion to take centre stage.
“Girlie-Pop!”, previously released as a single, blends strummed guitars and layers of foley with prominent 808 hyperpop kicks and evolving percussion. Amaarae uses music release as a metaphor for a relationship. The track interweaves themes of love, sex, and sensuality, with the drums giving way to moments of emotional sincerity before ending in rock guitar riffs.
“S.M.O” (short for “Slut Me Out”) embodies Black Star’s raunch over a bass-driven instrumental with off-kilter disco drums. Varied synth textures keep the sound fresh as Amaarae explores different layers of sexual desire: “I wanna week with her, she taste like Lexapro/ Coke bottle from Sexico, I got it for me and you/ Shawty got VSLs, I’m on the scene like evening news/ She slutty, I need her loose/ Acid, drop it, boost”.
Here, she experiments with her delivery, moving beyond her usual cadence into psychedelic melodies, while her chorus nods to older soul house before closing with bombastic Euro synth chords.
“Fineshyt” finds Amaarae singing about her new squeeze: “She’s my fine shyt/ I love her then I don’t/ She always on the phone/ I give her what she want/ My fine shyt/ She can’t be out alone/ I’m buying all her clothes/ It’s whatever she want”. The instrumental opens with trance and EDM influences, featuring sharp saw synths, before building into a thumping synth bass and pounding kick drums fused with clacking Afrobeats percussion. Amaarae briefly dips into her lower register in the third verse but mostly remains within her signature melodic range.
“Dove Cameron” sees the return of a braggadocious Amaarae, blending rapped delivery with her signature style: “I’m calling you bitches collect/ You niggas is soaking in debt/ You owe me for all of this swag/ You owe me for tatting your chest/ My bitch is bad/ ‘Bout to see what are we fucking on next/ I’m really myself in the flesh”. The instrumental is off-kilter, featuring swimming pads, a buzzing bass synth on the off-beats, and Baile funk-inspired syncopated percussion.
“Dream Scenario” is a grand, cinematic, psychedelic journey that could make Travis Scott blush. A standout moment on Black Star, it draws on psychedelic trap cadences, prominent autotune, and a simple melodic progression marked by high notes. Heavily processed vocals float over sweeping synths, wailing cinematic string passages, rich bass, pulsating synth accents, and delicate harp flourishes.
Amaarae delivers brilliantly in this dreamlike fusion, crafting a romantic fantasy: “I’ve been leaning hard on a stallion, she stable/ Let her hold my love ‘cause she’s willing and able/ Love her ‘cause she’s bad and there’s nowhere I can take her/ Fuck her soul away from her, suck her soul away from her/ My bitch style like Edna Mode, can’t put on no cape for her/ Good pussy is back at home, I’m now on the way to her”. The outro introduces Charlie Wilson, whose smooth, old-school R&B-soul vocals join female choral harmonies and expressive piano lines.
“100DRUM” opens with Twi choral vocals over a warm bass and subtle Baile funk-inspired percussion, before full drums enter alongside a two-chord progression played on bells and pads. Amaarae and featured artiste, Zacari, explore the complications of growing wealth—paranoia, disconnection, and disillusionment—singing: “I’m learning my lesson, oh/ Spiritually, personally/ I been in different modes for means/ Disillusioned, nowhere lucid/ What a bother/ What a nuisance, oh/ Yeah, yeah, yeah/ I’ve been paranoid”.
The track builds momentum towards its close, bringing back hyperpop kicks as Amaarae grows more vulnerable. It reiterates some of Black Star’s subtly explored themes, tying the project together with loose yet resonant threads.
“Free The Youth” closes Black Star, built around a Twi vocal sample with digital synths flexing and wavering over wide 808s and buzzing saw synths. Thumping kicks and Afrobeats drums ground the track as Amaarae recounts wild nights: “I been on them packs/ Might get too wavy on ‘em, yeah, yeah/ I’m coming with armed security/ There’s beams in the club and you dancing/ Got green off the brown like a kiwi/ She looking at me like she need me”. She moves fluidly between her high falsetto, light singing, and trap-influenced sung-rapped cadences before electronic textures guide the listener out, concluding an exhilarating journey.
Everything about Amaarae’s persona is bold, audacious, and daring. This new wave of global fame has thrust her into new worlds and onto new stages, and while some artistes might play it safe, Amaarae has seized the opportunity to deliver perhaps her boldest work yet.
Risky, inventive, focused yet experimental and varied, Black Star reflects the confidence, dedication, and versatility of the artiste behind it. The album seeps with intentionality: the decision to centre it around electronica and dance; the social metaphor of embracing genres often associated with the alternative; and the meticulous tracing of influences from different eras and strands of dance music. Elements of ‘70s soul house, trance and EDM, deep bass house, and even traces of K-Pop reveal the depth of her research and creative vision.
The production and engineering are co-stars here, transporting the listener into a variety of club spaces, merging and uniting different sonic ideas—from Afrobeats and trance to psychedelic trance and chill house. Every sound choice feels deliberate, every texture carefully considered.
The way the vocals are engineered dresses each song in the right attire for its intended effect, with subtle layers adding authenticity to the moods achieved. In an era where songs are shrinking to under three minutes, Amaarae offers several that stretch beyond the four-minute mark, giving space for sonic, thematic, and even tempo evolution. It reeks of confidence and artistic control.
The songs here are less individual narratives than self-contained experiences, bottled and presented to the listener, thrusting them into the drug-fuelled lust and hedonism that Amaarae paints. Yet beneath that surface lies interconnected storytelling, recurring motifs, and thematic links that reward deeper listening.
The songwriting ranges from mantra-like trance choruses that perfectly fit their genre mould, to vivid, metaphor-laden tales of love, loss, and longing, where vulnerability is cloaked in bravado and grandeur.
Her voice, long a point of both admiration and contention, remains unmistakable: clear, piercing, and perched in its high-frequency register. It cloaks her lyrics in an air of mystique, compelling the listener to lean in and decode her words. While her melodic and tonal pocket remains familiar, with its signature cadence and structure, moments of variation—lower registers here, falsetto peaks there, even trap-inflected flows in certain spots—provide enough contrast to keep her delivery engaging.
This makes the role of production and engineering all the more critical in shaping Black Star’s sonic palette. Still, her voice proves the perfect vessel for the moods and messages she seeks to convey.
Black Star is a ride of unpredictability and precision, brimming with surprises and sudden shifts—from pounding moments of reckless abandon to tender passages of emotional introspection. Amaarae guides her listeners through a gamut of feelings, tempos, and energies, crafting a journey that demands repeat visits, each one revealing new details and layers.
The intention, craft, and composition on display are top-tier, fully worthy of the global stage she now commands. At this point, Amaarae cannot be contained within any single box; the only fitting response is to watch and cheer as she decides where to take us next.
Lyricism – 1.6
Tracklisting – 1.6
Sound Engineering – 1.8
Vocalisation – 1.6
Listening Experience – 1.6
Rating – 8.2/10
Yinoluwa “Yinoluu” Olowofoyeku is a multi-disciplinary artist and creative who finds expression in various media. His music can be found across all platforms and he welcomes interaction on his social media @Yinoluu.