‘Black Star’ is the third album from Ghanaian-American pop star Amaarae, and it trades the occasionally introspective risk-taking of ‘Fountain Baby’ for a run at out and out dancefloor bangers. If the previous record was a blend of cheeky, confessional and often quite densely arranged songs, “Black Star” wants to push and pull you to all the different areas of a nightclub, especially the toilets.
This is a well-travelled dance album. Amaarae has taken in the nightlife of Accra, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles and São Paulo in her musical development, and the result threads house, trance and EDM into Afrobeats, with touches of Detroit techno and gqom. Within this diversity, the lyrics are a bit more vice-prosaic, with a focus on drink, drugs and sex.
Amaarae’s singing remains her hallmark: a light, often AutoTuned tone with a firm edge. It’s saccharine sweetness colliding with cynicism.
“This bitch likes me / And I like this bitch for now,” she declares on the opener, Stuck Up. If you’re not in the right headspace, it can be pretty grating.
And that’s the delicate path taken on ‘Black Star’ — it’s an album that is full of ideas and hooks, but it is pretty obnoxious at times. That may be the vibe of a sexy nightclub, but also quite a stressful one.
Does it lack compassion? Well, direct emotion is scarce. Even when veteran vocalist Charlie Wilson makes an appearance on Dream Scenario, his role seems somehow diminished, dismissed.
That said, the ‘Black Star’ has a lot going for it in terms of ideas, textures, hooks. It is clearly the work of a talented creator, but it’s a bit of a hot mess of an album. That is often the domain of rappers, and you often get a lot of humour thrown in those records. Here, it’s full on, crude, as in, I didn’t expect you to take me to dinner first, but do you think you could at least make me laugh?
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