Amaarae

“I love to bridge worlds that should not exist together,” says Amaarae, an international star who has broken the mold with her boundary-pushing blend of alternative, pop, R&B, and Afrobeats. Raised between Atlanta, New Jersey, and Accra, the singer/songwriter/producer has always transcended borders through her fluid songs of personal liberation and sensuality. But on her new album BLACK STAR, out August 8 via Interscope, the artist born Ama Serwah Genfi presents her boldest mix of global sonics yet. On the the follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2023 sophomore LP Fountain Baby, she fully sends up her Ghanaian roots as a rallying cry for youth culture around the world. BLACK STAR was born, in true Amaarae fashion, on cross-continental trips to Miami, Los Angeles, Brazil, and Accra. As she experienced dance music culture in each locale, she noticed more connections than differences—especially in how Black people in each city share “a lot of our patterns, tempos,” Amaarae says. “The ways that we approach music are the same. There’s a sense of being untethered and free.” These observations fostered a newfound sense of pride in the forward-thinking genres from her native Ghana—azonto, asorkpor, hiplife, and highlife—and led her to ask: “What does being Ghanaian mean to me? What is my interpretation of my culture, identity, and my pride?” The answer to that question is the diaspora-hopping BLACK STAR, a futuristic statement of cultural pride through an ever-shifting palette of ghettotech, house, techno, baile funk, and African dance genres—stamped with Amaarae’s signature softness and hypnotic vocals. It recontextualizes Ghanaian and African music with pop and club sounds across time and space, connecting them with the roots of modern-day dance music, house and techno, which were created by Black DJs and producers in 1980s Chicago and Detroit. “It’s time to take back the conversation and remind Black people that dance music is ours,” she says. “It’s time to remind Africans that we have also been experimenting with electronic music for two decades. Many of these genres intersect without even realizing that they intersect.” “Joy is a form of rebellion,” she continues. “Dance music brings about that sense of release and communion that we need right now, especially as individualism has become more prominent.” The cross-pollination of BLACK STAR is a true showcase of Amaarae’s tastemaking instincts and expansive knowledge of music. She produced the project alongside collaborators El Guincho, Ape Drums, Starkillers and BNYX, and features legends like Charlie Wilson and Naomi Campbell, and today’s stars including PinkPantheress and Bree Runway. With the deftness of an eclectic DJ, she folds in interpolations of Cher’s “Believe” and samples of Myspace-era Eurodance and Y2K hiplife. “I love to share my taste with people and open them up to music they might not have heard before, ” she says. There are songs like the raucous “Free the Youth” that features a 2000 hiplife song called “Deeba” that sends the message: “Day by day, we go through things might get you down, but we continue to push on, because we live on for the next generation,” Amaarae explains.“My voice has always stood first and foremost for the kids who are different in all ways, ” she says. “This album is bringing the alternative community to the forefront, and being fearless about that. My intention is to push confidence, freedom, and love forward.” Sexual liberation and empowerment are main themes on singles like “S.M.O.,” a mix of highlife, kpanlogo, and zouk. On “B2B,” she uses DJ lingo to make a playful song about “love that is taken but given back at the same time,” she explains. With its lilting melodies and cool-girl energy, “Fineshyt” is a soundtrack for women and femmes that highlights “the confidence of being feminine and feeling beautiful,” as she praises her lover: “She can’t be out alone/I’m buying all her clothes/It’s whatever she wants.” Amaarae debuted songs on BLACK STAR live at Coachella 2025, where she became the first Ghanaian artist to ever grace the Indio, California stage. Her historic, headline-making set saw the iconoclast playing energetic songs from fellow Ghanaian artists, in between her shaving her head on stage as a representation of “the new kind of freedom” the incoming era represents. She’ll bring unforgettable stage presence to festivals around the globe this summer and fall, including Governors Ball, Glastonbury, Afro Nation, Lollapalooza, Osheaga, and Lowlands. The celebratory Coachella performance followed the success of Amaarae’s sold-out tour behind 2023’s Fountain Baby, which was praised as among the best albums of the year by Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. Featuring the effortlessly suave singles “Angels in Tibet” and “Reckless and Sweet,” the Afrobeats-flipping LP launched her into global pop stardom, landing her on the cover NME, Paste, and Clash, as well as touring with Sabrina Carpenter and Childish Gambino, and an H&M x Mugler campaign. Amaarae has long championed self-expression ever since breaking out with her 2017 single “Fluid,” an ode to living in between different labels and modes. Her astronomical rise arrived with the release of her 2020 debut album THE ANGEL YOU DON’T KNOW, boosted by the now-platinum, globally charting “Sad Girlz Luv Money (Remix)” featuring Kali Uchis and Moliy. She stepped into the Black Panther cinematic universe with “A Body, A Coffin,” her contribution to Marvel’s 2022 Wakanda Forever Prologue EP. And she’s since exhibited her versatility through collaborations with Childish Gambino, Stormzy, Janelle Monáe, Jorja Smith, 6LACK, Kaytranada, Babyface, and Tiwa Savage, among others. Using songwriting as a way to “metabolize feelings” since middle school, Amaarae sees BLACK STAR as a full-circle moment harkening back to when she recorded her first Passionfruit Summers EP in her mother’s house in Ghana. “This era is about vindication—for myself and my community,” she declares.