Amaarae has kicked off her Black Star era with a new song, “S.M.O.” It’s an acronym for “slut me out,” an indication of the grown women vibes fans will hear on her forthcoming album.
“Black Star to me is the genesis of me feeling sure and confident in myself as a grown woman, number one, and knowing exactly what my message is, how I want to tell it to the world,” she says om an interview with Rolling Stone.
The title is a triple entendre referencing her (a Black woman), the Black origins of dance music and her Ghanaian culture.
“I’m taking my culture and I’m synthesizing it in a way that feels unique and fresh to me … I wanted to take a genre that needs to go back home to its roots and merge that with my African roots and hip-hop and create a new world,” she tells Rolling Stone.
Her hope with Black Star is to show people all over the world where she’s from.
“With this album, I want to stamp it as ‘I’m from Ghana, I love being Ghanaian.’ I want to be a global symbol,” she says. “My soul can’t rest until I feel like I’ve made a project that resonates in a really huge way globally. The last frontier is to make both a commercial and critical success.”
Black Star arrives on Aug. 8.
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