New releases from acts like Ayra Starr, Tyla, and Amaarae are turning up the heat
On Friday, July 26, the day of the week new music drops regularly, three of the hottest pop stars out of Africa doled out the steamiest trifecta of releases this year. Nigerian singer Ayra Starr’s latest song is literally about being hot. South African star Tyla came with a four-pack EP called WWP, short for We Wanna Party. And Ghanaian-American shapeshifter Amaarae broke barriers with her new single “Girlie-Pop!” and its steamy, queer-coded music video. It was a day that crystallized a pattern that had been forming all year: the women of Afropop are bringing sexy back.
Much of their movement, like others across media right now, is Y2K-indebted. Skirts and tops have gotten microscopic, bottoms are being slung below the waist again, and lots of producers seem to be doing their best impressions of early Pharrell. But that time also came with some trends in how women’s sexuality was marketed and received that we now find disturbing, to say the least. We can see that Britney Spears, the queen of Y2K, was someone whose personhood and sexuality was often devoured and exploited as she explored both as a young girl (her iconic and controversial 1999 Rolling Stone cover is an emblem of how complicated it is to make a teenager a sex symbol). We now know Janet Jackson was unfairly shamed and punished after Justin Timberlake exposed her pasty-covered breast during their 2004 Super Bowl performance. Today, while some of the cultural relics of that time have rolled back around, many young women may have more agency about why, when, and how they want to participate.
It feels like that agency is what we’re witnessing in Afropop. Ayra Starr — who emerged in 2021 as a cunning 19-year-old surrounded by cartoon butterflies and broken hearts — has grown more edgy in her dress and performance as she’s gotten older. In May, she inched towards summer with the fiery “Gimme Dat,” video featuring Wizkid, and last week, she finally released her much-anticipated new single “Hot Body.” “Body be dancing/Slow wine/Summer body/So fine,” she sings on the strip tease of a song. As she breadcrumbed the track on social media over the past few weeks, she could be seen hitting a seductive, TikTok ready dance to it with her girlfriends, and it truly looks like she’s having a blast. Just a few days ago, on July 27, she giddily celebrated performing the song with Coldplay, who she’s touring with as an opening act this summer. Before she took the stage, Chris Martin, who eagerly accompanied her on acoustic guitar, told the crowd, “Ok, everybody, listen. We will do something special because this is Ayra Starr from Nigeria. She is going to be the world’s biggest pop star soon and she has a new song called ‘Hot Body’ which I think is amazing. So please indulge us and join us for a big dance party.”
Dancing, of course, has been Tyla’s thing since she captivated the mainstream with “Water” in 2023. (Cute Y2K fashion has become a bit of a calling card for her, as it has for Starr. They’ve been friendly collaborators, both 23 years old.) The rollout and name of Tyla’s new EP, WWP, takes cues from the popular nightlife chant “[Insert name of DJ or performer leading the crowd here], we wanna party!” That makes perfect sense for a girl who’s always been about partying so hard you’re soaked, whether with sweat or the contents of your plastic bottle. Tyla’s WWP features “Bliss,” a track whose music video spawned an excellent meme about being sexy and sad at once. It takes the quick cut between a scene of the singer fighting tears and another of her grinding against a silver sculpture in desert sand. “Idk if we’re supposed to shake ass or cry” one YouTube commenter wrote to the tune of 15,000 likes.
The full WWP EP includes two songs that debuted this month, one being “Dynamite,” an energizing collaboration with Wizkid (it’s the pair’s first and feels reminiscent of Ayra Starr hopping on Star Boy’s “2 Sugar” earlier in her rise). The song that really cements the sexy, though, is “Mr. Media.” While the track lambasts the voyeuristic sensationalism she’s faced in the public eye, she uses the second verse to remind herself why she shouldn’t care: “Bad bitch, I ain’t always got time to talk/Too bad, yeah, I know I’m difficult/You’d be too if you had my visuals/You’d be too if you had material.”
Amaarae seems to be channeling a similar devil-may-care confidence as she gears up to release Black Star, her third studio album set to drop August 8. On Friday, she shared the second single, “Girlie-Pop!” following the erotic “S.M.O.” (for “Slut Me Out”). “Girlie-Pop!” ushers in this new era of Amaarae’s powerfully, honing a familiar balance of softness, urgency, and cleverly sensual songwriting with a righteously queer arc. Using music as an extended allegory, she coos, “I want you to take me from the top/Kiss
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