Ayra Starr on ascending to AfroPop greatness
Ayra Starr courtesy of Wonderland Magazine
This article was originally published in the Winter 2021 issue of Wonderland, find it here.
When Ayra Starr began to sing, it was as though the constellations had aligned. “I would say that my music feels celestial, it’s heavenly,” she describes, beaming a smile under the midday sun. Through her euphoric vocality, the 19-year-old yields spiritualism and glimmering confidence with the authority of a cosmic deity. Between the Benin Republic and Lagos, Nigeria, where she grew up, the singer found a propensity for soothing neo-soul music, tainted by hypnotic afrobeat percussion and rich cultural latticework. Starr’s ascent to success has been meteoric; being catapulted to viral notoriety on TikTok only months after her debut in January 2021. Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe chose ’Ayra’ as an Arabic moniker: “it means eye-opening or woke, which is what I stand for,” she says, illustrating that ‘Starr’ is her destiny as an artist – something her mother foresaw in prophetic, religious dreams.
From her infancy, family was always at the core of Starr’s creative excursion. She would assemble talent shows in the living room, drawing in grandparents and aunties “we’d pair up and perform Justin Timberlake or Disney reworks,” alongside lyrical rapping contests and reggae jams. At age 12, while her parents could not afford singing lessons, they saved up to purchase a secondhand guitar. “My brother learned how to play, then we started writing music. And to tell the truth, this instrument only had two strings!” She says, letting slip a rogue laugh. It was Milar, the same sibling, who went on to co-write Starr’s serene track “Away”, from her eponymous EP.
“When I shared my first release I was trying to assure myself,” she ruminates. Now that her album 19 & Dangerous is out, the singer is deep-heeled in a place of certainty. “I have grown into a more confident skin, I have evolved as a better person.” So, too, has her music with its eclectic dexterity; the album’s 11-songs are a vivacious confetti cannon of dancehall, Beninese folk and afropop, crafted through swaying melodies and tumbling rap flows. Underneath its spirited hooks, many sparked by a bolt-fast tempo, lie sincere openings on substance abuse in “Toxic”, as well as hypocrisy and mental health – to form a realistic coming-of-age compendium that compels audiences miles beyond an African diaspora. Despite Starr’s swift, stratospheric rise to global stardom, she maintains a grounded mentality. “I still live at home so before a show I’m yelling at my sister for stealing my clothes or doing the dishes, I think that is humbling enough!” She jests. For an artist that acts reassuringly lowkey, her fame is otherwise undetectable – something you could only measure in her million-plus Instagram followers and song impressions.
As she chats, playing sporadically with her cherry-red braids, the singer glows with an obvious tenacity: she knows her worth. In “Fashion Killer'', Starr cites her appearance as a metaphorical weapon. She speaks about herself with an assured fondness, in the whole-hearted way that one might address a valentine. “When you find real, genuine love in yourself, beyond vanity, nobody can put you down. When they see your confidence, people will begin to accept you. ” It’s a lesson learnt from university, which the musician attended at merely 14-years-old, to the wrath of much older bullies. “I used to feel like I was different because I've always been a maverick, I’ve always had a mind of my own.” Instead of fading away, Starr didn’t ask for permission from a world that wasn’t ready for her – rather, she created her own universe. It was then that she found valiant solace in the tracks of Nicki Minaj: “Walking to class I thought, ‘These people can’t mess with me!’ And I want to share that unstoppable power with today’s youth.”
Sampling an Eartha Kitt interview on expression, the song “Cast (Gen Z Anthem)” exudes this steely sentiment, as a riposte to being sidelined. Growing up with ADHD meant that the musician was often silenced – where now she’s a generational mouthpiece. “In Africa, young people can be put into such a bracket, adults telling us that we should be in school to do this or that [...] Freedom is being who you are. I want people to see that I broke that stereotype of how female artists should be, how they should dress,” she affirms. “I’ve come to do what I’ve come to do, unbothered!”
Conversely, her trailblazing views echo the ongoing #EndSARS protests in Africa against police brutality as much as they do subcultures – like Nigeria’s underground Alté scene, where music takes on a political mantle. It's an attitude addressed in Starr’s beat-ridden track “Bridgertn”, that lyrically marches to a similar mould-breaking drum. “I don't want to be a person that has to live life according to a set rule, I want to be an artist emitting love. I never see competition, it’s breaking that association where women have to be pitted against each other.” As much as she tears apart tradition, Starr bolsters communities together in her home country. When quizzed on her provincial impact, the young musician is blissful, her eyes widening: “I just wake up sometimes and my heart feels so full. I tear up whenever I think about it,” Starr replies. “In humanity, music makes life better for everyone, it soothes the soul, it says the things you can only think – sound is spiritual healing.”
Such pure energy oscillates in Starr’s most recognised track, “Bloody Samaritan'', that points its lyrics to self-preservation: ‘Dem no fit kill my vibe!’ Pairing punchy Pidgin English and Yorubian vernacular lingo, the hit is infused with iron-like resilience. “You have to hype yourself up every day, be your own healer giving affirmations: everything I desire I will receive,” she says. Though Starr needn’t manifest her fate – with stellar rhythms at her disposal and charisma that lights up the sky, her future is sure to be one shining with unbridled brilliance. “I'm going to be me and go wherever the world takes me.” Perhaps, even, to a parallel galaxy.