Amaarae songs have the icy glamor of luxurious images, however not one of the stillness. Guided by her fluid coos, the Ghanaian American singer’s stressed Afropop always flows and bubbles, liquid and frothy as seafoam. On final 12 months’s globetrotting Fountain Child, she performed a Dionysian priestess, extolling the wonders of pussy and premium items over beats that bridged Accra, Virginia Seaside, and Hokkaido. A line from “Angels in Tibet” captures her fixed pairing of opulence and exertion: “Diamonds hit the sweat.” In Amaarae’s music, even the jewels get moist.
The follow-up EP, roses are purple, tears are blue — A Fountain Child Prolonged Play, is simply as soaked and opulent, although the temper is extra subdued. The lyrics aren’t as manic; the songs don’t erupt into mall punk and dream pop; and the samples aren’t as eclectic, however an Amaarae after-party continues to be a romp. She continues to twist her lithe voice into sensuous and alien shapes, her indelible coolness at all times stemming from her boundless sense of play. For her, flexing is a love language.
The wealthy manufacturing, sourced from core collaborators like KZ Didit and Kyu Steed, blends alté, highlife, R&B, and home. The songs are svelte, however at all times textured, the ethereal melodies and swinging polyrhythms layered with strings, horns, and synths. If Fountain Child was a flying circus, roses is a homecoming parade, grounded however no much less colourful. The wistful “wished” works a slinky vocal pattern, breathy harmonies, and pattering drums into a mild groove. “I’ll be wished,” Amaarae and OVO signee Naomi Sharon sing with resolve. The affirmation is susceptible and cocky, match to be chanted alone or whispered to a rival.
Amaarae’s longtime admiration of Younger Thug is clear on this document. She raps in double-time on “jehovah witness,” her verses incessantly erupting into giddy ad-libs and yelps. On the triumphant “this!” her slippery melodies burst into squeals of enjoyment. “Thirty carat diamonds on my wrist/And I’m a vigilante/No match shut my case,” she shrieks, her pitch and lyrics channeling the incarcerated rapper. She’s not as chaotic or expressive as Thug, however she shares his conviction that perpetual movement is the last word freedom.
After all, generally even unbothered playgirls get performed. Beneath the splendor and swagger of those songs runs an undercurrent of longing. “Sweetie, darling/Darling, sweetie/Choose up/The cellphone/And name me once you miss me,” she pleads on the sun-drenched “sweeeet,” like a ghosted lover leaving a voicemail. Pet names and a chippy supply belie her anxious pining. On “diamonds,” a damp dance minimize, gleaming gem stones supply little comfort as a relationship falls aside. “Who’s that you just been calling, texting/Shawty, finessing/To like me is a blessing/Guess I by no means study my lesson,” she sings with resignation.
Heartbreak, pleasure, and self-assurance converge on spotlight and specific Jeffery Williams ode “THUG (Really Humble Underneath God),” which takes its title from a second within the ongoing and surreal YSL trial. The ballad is likely one of the most minimalistic in Amaarae’s catalog; it opens with a sampled prayer for blessings, then builds slowly towards catharsis. She sounds nervous the primary time she sings the refrain. “I don’t fold below strain/I don’t fall below ache/Tomorrow could be higher/However I’m wanting ahead at present,” she murmurs right into a void of plangent piano and strings. However because the devices develop bolder and the drums rush in, her voice lifts, and the hook turns exultant, as if she’s breached after a deep dive.
The pop experimentalist is at all times in pursuit of reduction in her songs—via intercourse, via expression, via movement. However right here, confidence alone doesn’t assure it, a twist that provides new rigidity to her bustling music. Amaarae sticks to her signature carefree debauchery for many of roses, however she stays a shapeshifter.
