Meet Ayra Starr: Fast-Rising Afropop Singer Who’s Always Known She’s a ‘Sabi Girl’
Emanuel Okusanya The fast-rising Afropop singer Ayra Starr says she always knew she was destined for greatness. It didn’t take long: She’d signed with the major African label Mavin, racked up hundreds of millions of streams, headlined a U.K. tour and gotten cosigns from many of her idols, all before her 21st birthday this coming June. After her debut single “Away” shot her to stardom in her native Nigeria, her hit single “Rush” has surpassed 100 million streams on both Spotify and YouTube, and she just dropped a tag-team single with labelmate DJ Big N and singer Oxlade called “How Many Times.” It all began simply enough: She’d been singing with her brother for most of her life, and one day when she was 18, “I posted a video — it was the first original song I posted online,” she recalls, “and the next day my executive producer called me and invited me to the studio. Literally three days later I was signed.” The label in question is Mavin Records, the powerhouse Nigeria-based company that launched the global careers of industry icons such as Tiwa Savage, Don Jazzy, Rema and others. Her career vaulted to the next level with “Bloody Samaritan” — an R&B banger that took off in the U.K. and caught the attention of Kelly Rowland, who later joined the remix and became a mentor to Starr.