Latest news with #Starkillers
Hypebeast
12-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Amaarae Ascends on Boundless 'BLACK STAR'
Summary Amaarae's star has been one to watch for a while now, initially inviting an influx of eyes with breakout single 'Fluid' in 2017. Almost ten years later, the Ghanaian-American's artistry is still guided by her fluidity – in genre, gender, style, and sonic composition – possibly more now than ever before, shining through her third studio album,BLACK STAR. Across the enamouring 13-track album, Amaarae takes the sounds of her Ghanaian upbringing global, amalgamating amapiano and Afrobeats, among other local subgenres – ghettotech, house, techno, and baile funk included. Her internet era come-up is also strung throughout the album, hypnotic synths and dreamy dance breaks hitting right when needed. In Amaarae's own words, the diaspora-transcending LP is an ode to the alternative youth of Ghana. 'This era is about vindication—for myself and my community,' she asserts. As for the project's contributors,PinkPantheresshops on highlight 'Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt. 2,' withNaomi Campbellon 'ms60,' bothBree Runwayand Starkillers on 'Starkilla,'Zacarion '100DRUM,' andCharlie Wilsonon 'Dream Scenario.' 1. Stuck Up2. Starkilla ft. Bree Runway & Starkillers3. ms60 ft. Naomi Campbell4. Kiss Me Thru The Phone pt. 2 ft. PinkPantheress5. B2B6. She Is My Drug7. Girlie-Pop!8. S.M.O.9. Fineshyt10. Dove Cameron11. Dream Scenario ft. Charlie Wilson12. 100DRUM ft. Zacari13. Free The Youth Infused with the influence of her elders,BLACK STARblurs a myriad of local sounds and revamps them for the internet age – turning up the reverb, leaning into AutoTune, somehow maintaining a finger on the pulse to anticipate just what unexpected sonic union we don't even know we're seeking out. If the future of Afropop is in Amaarae's hands, we're doingmorethan just fine. StreamBLACK STAR– out everywhere now.
Vogue
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
‘I Don't Know That I Can Be Placed in a Box': Amaarae on Her Thrilling New Album, Black Star
On her third studio album, Black Star, Amaarae wastes no time. From the start, she throws down the gauntlet, swirling her distinctive soprano vocals around Euro techno, baile funk, and Afrobeats like they're a playground. The second track, 'Starkilla' (featuring Bree Runway and Starkillers), is driven by a choppy, repetitive bass, as Amaarae sings about various class A and B drugs. On 'B2B,' a deep house track that's destined to be a club classic, she chants the lyrics, 'I've been into you, I like what we do, now come into me, see my point of view,' almost as though she's casting a spell—before transitioning into a haunting acoustic serenade. 'This time around, I was like, 'Let's have some fun,'' the Ghanaian-American says, sitting opposite me in a dimly lit corner of her label's office, wearing her signature black-on-black. The project started in Miami last winter, after she performed a show with her producers and engineers in tow. The music started flowing and, well: 'We were just having a good time!' Amaarae later decamped to Brazil, where she immersed herself in 'the culture and the people' before finally finishing the LP at her home in Los Angeles. 'Usually we'd be in a studio for weeks or months,' she says. '[This time] we built a studio in my crib and just did it.' Unlike her previous projects (she 'overthought things a lot' while making her smash-hit 2023 album Fountain Baby, she says), Black Star is an uninhibited record. It incorporates enigmatic affirmations with Bree Runway, a flirty appearance from PinkPantheress—and even a Naomi Campbell outro. 'I really wanted to make a statement about my capability as a musician and a creative,' Amaarae tells me now. 'To show people that I can do music in a higher art sense.'
