On her third studio album, Black Star , Amaarae wastes no time. From the start, she throws down the gauntlet, swirling her distinctive soprano vocals around Euro techno, baile funk, and Afrobeats like they’re a playground. The second track, “Starkilla” (featuring Bree Runway and Starkillers), is driven by a choppy, repetitive bass, as Amaarae sings about various class A and B drugs. On “B2B,” a deep house track that’s destined to be a club classic, she chants the lyrics, “I’ve been into you, I like what we do, now come into me, see my point of view,” almost as though she’s casting a spell—before transitioning into a haunting acoustic serenade.

“This time around, I was like, ‘Let’s have some fun,’” the Ghanaian-American says, sitting opposite me in a dimly lit corner of her label’s offic

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