Amaarae songs have the icy glamor of luxury photography, but none of the stillness. Guided by her fluid coos, the Ghanaian American singer’s restless Afropop constantly flows and bubbles, liquid and frothy as seafoam. On last year’s globetrotting Fountain Baby, she played a Dionysian priestess, extolling the wonders of pussy and premium goods over beats that bridged Accra, Virginia Beach, and Hokkaido. A line from “Angels in Tibet” captures her constant pairing of opulence and exertion: “Diamonds hit the sweat.” In Amaarae’s music, even the jewels get wet.
The follow-up EP, roses are red, tears are blue — A Fountain Baby Extended Play, is just as soaked and luxurious, though the mood is more subdued. The lyrics aren’t as manic; the songs don’t erupt into mall punk and dream pop; and the samples aren’t as eclectic, but an Amaarae after-party is still a romp. She continues to twist her lithe voice into sensuous and alien shapes, her indelible coolness always stemming from her boundless sense of play. For her, flexing is a love language.
The rich production, sourced from core collaborators like KZ Didit and Kyu Steed, blends alté, highlife, R&B, and house. The songs are svelte, but always textured, the airy melodies and swinging polyrhythms layered with strings, horns, and synths. If Fountain Baby was a flying circus, roses is a homecoming parade, grounded but no less colorful. The wistful “wanted” works a slinky vocal sample, breathy harmonies, and pattering drums into a gentle groove. “I’ll be wanted,” Amaarae and OVO signee Naomi Sharon sing with resolve. The affirmation is vulnerable and cocky, fit to be chanted alone or whispered to a rival.
Amaarae’s longtime admiration of Young Thug is obvious on this record. She raps in double-time on “jehovah witness,” her verses frequently erupting into giddy ad-libs and yelps. On the triumphant “this!” her slippery melodies burst into squeals of delight. “Thirty carat diamonds on my wrist/And I’m a vigilante/No fit close my case,” she shrieks, her pitch and lyrics channeling the incarcerated rapper. She’s not as chaotic or expressive as Thug, but she shares his conviction that perpetual motion is the ultimate freedom.
Of course, sometimes even unbothered playgirls get played. Beneath the splendor and swagger of these songs runs an undercurrent of longing. “Sweetie, darling/Darling, sweetie/Pick up/The phone/And call me when you miss me,” she pleads on the sun-drenched “sweeeet,” like a ghosted lover leaving a voicemail. Pet names and a chippy delivery belie her anxious pining. On “diamonds,” a humid dance cut, gleaming gemstones offer little consolation as a relationship falls apart. “Who’s that you been calling, texting/Shawty, finessing/To love me is a blessing/Guess I never learn my lesson,” she sings with resignation.
Heartbreak, joy, and self-assurance converge on highlight and explicit Jeffery Williams ode “THUG (Truly Humble Under God),” which takes its title from a moment in the ongoing and surreal YSL trial. The ballad is one of the most minimalistic in Amaarae’s catalog; it opens with a sampled prayer for blessings, then builds slowly toward catharsis. She sounds nervous the first time she sings the chorus. “I don’t fold under pressure/I don’t fall under pain/Tomorrow might be better/But I’m looking forward today,” she murmurs into a void of plangent piano and strings. But as the instruments grow bolder and the drums rush in, her voice lifts, and the hook turns exultant, as if she’s breached after a deep dive.
The pop experimentalist is always in pursuit of relief in her songs—through sex, through expression, through motion. But here, confidence alone doesn’t guarantee it, a twist that adds new tension to her bustling music. Amaarae sticks to her signature carefree debauchery for most of roses, but she remains a shapeshifter.