Afrobeats Superstar Ayra Starr on the Freedom She Felt Making ‘Starrgirl’: ‘I Kept Telling People, “Let Me Cook!”’

Nigerian Afrobeats sensation Ayra Starr is having her hair blow-dried when she casually drops that she has a flight to catch within the hour. It’s barely 48 hours before her album drops, and our interview has already been rescheduled to fit around her recovery from an undisclosed surgery. Between answering questions, getting glammed up, and prepping for travel, the 24-year-old admits she initially felt the urge to “push, push, push” before realizing, “I can’t do anything more than my body will allow me.” There’s often speculation about whether today’s young pop stars have the stamina for the relentless demands of superstardom, but watching the machine move around Starr suggests something far more nuanced. Despite her recovery, she carved out time for this chat, hosted listening parties in New York and Los Angeles, and even squeezed in an early appearance on the “Today” show. She’s simply mastered the art of making the grind look effortless.

Her third studio album, “Starrgirl,” arrives today (Aug. 14) and tackles a compelling question: What happens when you relocate to New York City, start trusting yourself more, and strip away the noise and expectations from your environment, your inner circle, and especially the internet? The record finds Starr experimenting with fresh sounds while staying rooted in the Afrobeats that first put her on the global map, with her voice serving as the unifying thread throughout. The tracklist is stacked with high-profile collaborations, including Zayn Malik, Leon Thomas, fellow Grammy nominee Wizkid, Kwn, Rema, Danny Ocean, Theodora, and more. Starr, who earned two Grammy nominations and opened stadium shows for Coldplay, is at a pivotal crossroads in her career. She’s also set to make her acting debut in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s upcoming fantasy-adventure film “Children of Blood and Bone.” For many artists, a third album is a chance to double down on their sonic and visual identity or pivot toward a rebrand—but “Starrgirl” sees Starr attempting both simultaneously.

As her musical palette expands, she’s found ways to honor her Nigerian heritage, most notably through the traditional Yoruba gele head wrap featured on the album’s cover art. Geles are typically worn at celebratory events, and alongside photographer Axle Jozeph, Starr transforms the accessory into an Afrofuturist emblem, blending it with sci-fi lasers. The imagery underscores that her evolution doesn’t require abandoning her roots; instead, she’s taking something deeply traditional and reimagining it for a futuristic context. The move to New York proved to be a catalyst for much of this transformation. Now, she simply asks listeners to approach the album with “a clean mind” and grant themselves “45 minutes of enjoyment.”

Reflecting on her growth since our last conversation two years ago, Starr says she’s become far more patient with her journey. “It’s easy to have these really high expectations of how things are supposed to be, and then you realize you didn’t really get to experience the moment, instead of living it,” she explains. “The internet and people do have a way of making you take your eyes off your own road. And if you believe the pressure and what they think your journey should be—you have to know yourself to know that this is not what you want.” As for who “Starrgirl” is, Starr describes her not as an alter ego but as a version of herself that’s already complete. “I feel like I was a different person in New York than I was in any part of the world, and I just liked who I was,” she says. “Being a Black girl and an African girl, we grew up with, ‘You have to be this.’ There’s a certain type of anxiety that is deep, layers, layers, layers within you, that you just feel like you have to unlearn. But when you remove yourself from that and go deep, you start to understand that you don’t need to be anything other than what you already are.”

Living alone for the first time in New York has also reshaped her perspective. “I’m spending a lot of time with myself. I started to question things that I didn’t understand, I didn’t like. But I started to understand, ‘I don’t like being this. I don’t like doing this. Why do I have to do it? Who says I must?’” That introspection has bled into her creative process. On the album’s standout track “Amazing” with Kwn, she ventures further from Afrobeats than ever before. “When I made ‘Amazing,’ it was one of those songs that was early in the recording process. I didn’t understand where I was going, but I just knew I was going,” she says with a laugh. “I kept telling people, ‘Let me cook. Let me cook.’” The recording sessions themselves were a departure, too—she worked alone with just an engineer for the first time since her debut, even dressing up and treating studio time like a nine-to-five. “I’d go from my house, I would dress up, wear heels. I was going to a nine-to-five. Go to the studio, have my blanket, have my shot of tequila. That made me master it, and I became very free.”

Opening for Coldplay on their “Music of the Spheres” tour was another lesson in humility and connection. “Coldplay fans came to see Coldplay. Ayra Starr is opening. They’re getting to know Ayra Starr. So there’s no entitlement attached. There’s no expectations. It’s just me being an artist and entertaining them before Coldplay comes on,” she says. “After every performance, I’d go outside and watch Coldplay. I realized it wasn’t even about Coldplay. For Coldplay, it was about the audience.” As for her two Grammy nominations in the relatively new Best African Music Performance category, Starr remains grounded. “It’s crazy, right? Because I feel like anytime it happens, I’m just like, ‘Ayee.’ I’ve come a long way. Coming from where I come from, getting nominated for a Grammy is crazy. I’m lowkey pushing the goalpost. So even being there and being in that environment with all these great artists and allowing myself to experience that, it’s enough.”