Amaarae Shares New Track 'Girlie-Pop!'

Djita Cissé
Jul 27
2 min read

Updated: Jul 28

Born from a freestyle around a campfire on a boozy night in Brazil, Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter Amaarae’s new single 'Girlie-Pop!' feels like a kiss in the form of a song.

Amaarae enchants once again with her unmistakable, angelic vocals on the glitter-dusted, percussive single 'Girlie-Pop!', ahead of her third studio album, Black Star. Echoing the bewitching sound of 'Angels in Tibet', the second track on her 2023 album Fountain Baby, she teams up with Brazilian producer Maffalda, Kyu Steed, Mackson Kennedy, Deekapz, and Heavy Mellow to create a genre-bending club banger.

“Flip positions, switching genres ‘til you make it pop”, compelling in its figurative and its literal sense, describing the interplay between all these different sounds, where Amaarae is re-contextualising these syncopated beats under an (African) pop umbrella. 'Girlie-Pop!' feels indulgent, almost sickeningly sweet, leaving you wanting more.

It's like a playground of different, highly percussive, sequential beats playing at different portions of the track, where jersey club, highlife, Afrobeats, baile funk, techno, pop – all have their time to shine – all in seductive, sirenic, sensuous synergy.

Standing in the middle of the Black Star tracklist, 'Girlie-Pop!' lasting all of two minutes, still feels like the right length for this kind of otherworldly sensory euphoria, “Melodies that I’m getting from Heaven”.

She plays directly into the delicateness, playfulness and softness associated with girlishness and femininity – but doused in sapphic sensuality. Shot in Brazil, filmed in Ghana, Amaarae explains the inspiration for “Girlie-Pop!” stems from a boozy night surrounded by beautiful people, inspired to make a song that feels just like a beijo, or a kiss in English, in aptly Brazilian style.

The visuals alternate between an enthralling golden-hour lit sapphic romance and a passionate emerald-lit solo DJ set, our attention switching places between the expertly mixed percussion and the breathy vocals. Clad in Mugler, Diesel and Luar– Amaarae’s Black Star rollout is nothing short of visually compelling, leaving us waiting in anticipation for what’s to come in two weeks on August 8th.

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