Three years ago, to mark the release of Nigerian singer Ayra Starr’s debut EP, Starr’s brother paid a Lagos singer of fújì, a Yoruba genre incorporating elements of poetry, to chant praises at her. That melodic verse opens Starr’s sophomore album The Year I Turned 21, and sees the artist – born Oyinkansola Sarah Aderibigbe – labelled “the glorious child”.
It’s a moniker Starr isn’t exactly scared of embracing. “One thing you’ll notice about me is I’m very audacious,” she says. “I like to shock people and I always show temerity in any way possible.” The audaciousness is what grips you – while you’re taken in by the beautiful, rhythmic fújì melodies, you’re then hit with Starr’s bold vocals, and lines like “I run up blocks, I run ’em myself” and “I don’t watch my tone cause I like how I sound, bitch”.
This swagger is well earned. After her discovery by record producer Don Jazzy via Instagram in 2019, Starr’s distinctively luxurious alto has carried her to greater and greater heights. Her 2022 breakout single Rush has earned Starr more than 370m Spotify streams and a Grammy nomination, while her new album was the first by a female Nigerian artist to debut on the Billboard 200 when it was released last month. Now, Starr is about to make her Glastonbury debut, taking the Pyramid stage slot that was last year occupied by Brit awards record-breaker Raye. “Oh my God, the pressure!” she laughs.
Starr’s ascendancy sits as part of a broader rise of young female singers from Africa, with fellow Nigerian Tems and the South African artist Tyla having both released debut albums to critical acclaim this year. For Starr it’s “the best thing ever … so many young girls that are going to be so inspired by this, there’s so many talented women from Africa. Trust me you’ve not even seen the half of it, and I can’t wait for them to spread their wings.”
Starr, once described by gal-dem magazine as “the teenage ambassador for Nigeria’s young people”, is speaking on the eve of her 22nd birthday. The bravado that characterises her discography is not only a product of recent success but a quality that has persisted since her teens. Born in Cotonou, Benin, Starr spent much of her childhood moving back and forth between her birthplace and Lagos. This restless childhood helped facilitate, rather than disrupt, her music ambitions. She’d always been singing, having grown up in a “musical family”, but movement encouraged a curiosity born from experiencing music in different locations. “Sometimes if I moved to a new city, I’d join the choir there,” she explains. “Then I’d move to another city, where my brother would be learning how to play the guitar and maybe be in a boyband, and I would learn from them, too.”
As hinted by its title, The Year I Turned 21 represents a coming-of-age moment for Starr: “It’s me finally allowing myself to experience life. I’m literally a superstar! At 19! At 20! We’ve never had that in Africa. I spent most of my late teenage years travelling and touring and being alone on the road and having to experience life alone. And I feel like that’s what I was trying to show in the album: my growth, my evolution.”
This evolution is expressed in the album’s more adult sound: the dream pop gloss of tracks 21 and Rhythm & Blues provides a seductive charm, while the alt-rock sound on 1942 adds a sprinkle of grit. There is also the introspective tearjerker The Kids Are Alright, which sees Starr sing to her father, who died when she was a teenager, and includes voice notes from her mother and siblings. “Turning 21, I started to say: ‘I need to actually grieve my dad’,” Starr says. “I miss him, I need to talk about missing him.
“I made this song on my bed,” she adds. “And I always make the best music just on my bed. Because every time I go back on my bed, I just feel a certain type of safety. I feel like I don’t have to be Ayra Starr, I can be daddy’s girl Oyinkan.”
There is also an aesthetic evolution to go with the musical one: “Growing up I used to be more masculine and tomboy. I’d wear big shirts and big pants. Then I started growing up and I was like, no matter what I dress like, I’m only gonna get respected if people want to respect me. So I became more feminine, stopping being ashamed of loving pink, getting my nails done, sitting down for three hours for makeup. I love getting dressed up!”
You can find this kind of alpha-feminine confidence on the track Woman Commando, featuring R&B singer Coco Jones and Latin pop singer Anitta, in which Starr sings: “As a lioness, I dey move with squad”. Her genre curiosity has encouraged a fruitful partnership with Latin pop singers: earlier in the year, Starr appeared on the reggaeton track Santa with Rauw Alejandro and Rvssian.
Starr believes her steadfast personality explains why she’s so confident in tackling everything from amapiano to Latin pop. “Every genre I enter it’s almost like all the different schools I went to, I will still remain myself, I will still remain Ayra Starr.” It’s a conviction that suggests that Glastonbury will just be one pit stop en route to an even starrier destination. “I want to get bigger and bigger,” she says. “I want to become one of the biggest musicians, not just an Afrobeats musician, but one of the biggest artists in the world!”
The Year I Turned 21 is out now. Starr plays the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury on 29 June at 1.15pm; coverage on BBC iPlayer.
