IT WAS IN JUNE THAT AYRA STARR gave us one of the best pop albums of the year in The Year I Turned 21, and its gravitas is only beginning to manifest. In the streaming era, album life cycles are invariably short, but Ayra won’t be rushed. She should have released the album in September 2023; instead, it arrived when she was ready.
For the Ayra fans who are navigating young adulthood with her, her catalogue is a common point of connection. Each record feels like a logging-in-to, a personal and diaristic examination of an endearing, charismatic protagonist. Her first album, 19 & Dangerous, showcased an artist with a fearsome melodic flair and grand ambitions, revelling in her own talent. For first-time listeners, she was a young protégé under the tutelage of Don Jazzy, the newcomer outshining a roster of mostly-male heavy-hitters. At just 19 years old, she dominated playlists and broke streaming records, turning supreme earworms and her fiery Y2K style into immediate signatures. Her fame has jumped exponentially ever since. Measured by either streaming-era metrics or the oldest yardsticks in the business, Ayra Starr was becoming an indisputable global pop star.
The Year I Turned 21 is a stellar addition to a promising catalogue. It provides a sonic time-capsule that charts the learning, growing and, yes, crying that shaped her into the woman she is today. For the culture, it’s an epochal masterpiece.
It was clear from the beginning that Ayra Starr represents everything about African Gen-Z pop culture, and that she was among a crop of artists set to herald the second wave of Afrobeats’ explosion. She arrived at a time when the genre had just crystallised on the global pop stage and a new internet age generation picked up the mantle. The last few years have been the most formative for Afrobeats as the music has expanded and defied expectations. Starr’s career has followed much the same tangent. The legends she grew up idolising, like Tiwa Savage, Wizkid and Wande Coal, are now her peers; the internet has cut down the barrier of entry for African artists. Her albums are landmark moments, as much cohesive and autobiographical pop records as they feel like an ode to the culture that spurred them.
Her latest offering is an ebullient and at-times melancholic check in. Critics of Afrobeats as a whole insist on pointing out a lack of lyrical depth, yet Starr nails what she wants to say. On TYIT21, she communicates love and loss with refreshing authenticity. Who said Afropop needs to water down the truth or fine-tune reality? The charisma and unfiltered vulnerability underneath her veneer is all real. Cuts like “21” and “The Kids Are Alright”—dedicated to her late father—tackle the insecurities of coming of age. The pop princess appears to be following her mother’s advice in the latter track and encourages her audience to do the same: stop “pleasing people” and “enjoy what you work for.”
Starr is veritably in control on her second album, dictating its timbre at her own measured pace. Shiny pop stardom might be her shtick, but Ayra Starr is the artist you cannot manufacture. She’s a one-off. While she’s certainly not rewriting her artistry, her sophomore album is a stellar addition to a well-cultivated sound. Not only is it more spiritual, it’s also more luxurious. From the anthemic Afro-riddim on “Commas” to the Nigerian high- life-infused “Bad Vibes” or log drum heavy detours into Amapiano like “Woman Commando”—palette-wise, TYIT21 is a perfect capsule of what Afrobeats sounds like today.
Through thoughtful curation, TYIT21 peacocks the wealth of Ayra’s Starr’s international pop celebrity. Appearances by Anitta, Giveon and Coco Jones feel just as well-matched as the Asake and Seyi Vibez features—collaborations that feel meaningful, not gimmicky. Her chief conspirator and Mavin Records colleague, London, makes an equally dignified return on several tracks. In case anyone still needed a reminder: this album is a testament to Starr’s place at the forefront of the neo-Afrobeats movement. It’s Afrobeats that is aware of global trends, while still serving up tracks to the loyal core of listeners that have been around since its inception.
But while the praise that rained on The Year I Turned 21 immediately following its release was and is fully deserved, if anything, it shows that the best is yet to come. The album solidified Ayra Starr’s status as one of the most important voices in Afropop. The music hits home, no matter how many times you hear it—no matter how well you think you’ve figured out adulthood. It feels impermeable, the kind of project people will still be listening to and talking about for decades to come. While many of Afrobeats’ elder statesmen never got their flowers, Ayra Starr is set on collecting hers.
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