With her most recent single, “Rush,” Nigerian artist Ayra Starr is now having a lot of success. The singer is also well recognised for her occasionally contentious clothing choices, which many have dubbed her “ashawo” style of attire. Ayra Starr discussed both of these topics in a recent interview with Cool FM, and she had a lot to say about both. She said the following.
Speaking about her latest single “Rush”, Ayra Starr said:
I think the time when I made “Rush”, I made “Rush” with this amazing writer called Embryo, thank you Embryo for allowing me enter that space. When I wrote “Rush”, I was in a space where I was so unsure of myself, and I grew up a very confident person. Ehn! As a child, nobody could tell me anything! I’m telling you! I would be like “I’m going to be a superstar”, and I would just like be that confident. And when “Bloody Samaritan” started blowing up, I was also entering a stage in womanhood also. So it was a lot. I was not with my family cuz I’m travelling around the world and everything. So I was in a phase where I was very insecure, very unsure of myself, I wasn’t sure what I could do. I felt like everything I was was someone else’s idea and it wasn’t me. So I wanted to find myself, I wanted to find the real me. And that’s when I made “Rush” and it was my song. Like yeah, this is who I am, take it or leave it.
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To be honest, I didn’t even want to release “Rush”. I was like “no, I want to do something like more like I want to talk about life, I want to do something singy with my vocals”, but then Jazzy was like this is the song and I was like “but I feel like I’m speaking too much pidgin”, I was so insecure about it. I had so many thoughts about it. But Jazzy, Tega, my A&R in general, they had so much confidence in this song. And just the confidence they transferred to me, I was like okay, if they’re so confident about this song then let me try it. And I did. From the first day, I’ve not seen one bad comment about “Rush” till now and it’s crazy.
Speaking about why she likes to sometimes wear her ‘ashawo’ clothes, Ayra Starr said:
In real life, I like to enter into two different energies. Sometimes I’m just like a guy, I want to wear boots today. And then sometimes, I’m wearing my skirt that’s just as tiny as a belt [laughs]. And sometimes, I’m not wearing clothes [laughs]. But I just like to expose myself to different things, I like to feel different things, and I put that in my music too. I want people to be able to feel 2 different energies. I can start a song very like slow or sad and then in the chorus, I’m angry. I want people to feel different things when they hear me.
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