The same year Ayra Starr inked her record deal and began recording music at Mavin Studios in Lagos, the city — and by extension, all of Nigeria — experienced a reckoning over police brutality, corruption, and decades of political and social injustice that had boiled over into a series of protests and state-sanctioned killings. The world watched as the youth-led uprising made waves in the news and across social media. Though Nigeria's median age is 18 — among the youngest in the world — the country has always seemed to be in conflict with its youth, and the End SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) protests in October 2020 were a culmination of that.
Millennials and Gen Z'ers — who had been yearning for an upheaval of the many isms that have plagued Nigeria since colonial times — called for an end to political abuse, economic instability, violent patriarchy, and misogyny. Though the protests and demonstrations have lulled since then, the driving sentiments and struggles remain. Remnants of that strife are showcased within the music industry, as women continue to fight for structural support, recognition, and autonomy over their art.
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Those remnants are why Starr continues to advocate for herself, despite constant criticism over her wardrobe choices and image. In her song “Ase,” she chants, “F*ck society… f*ck your hypocrisy, Don't want any part of it.” It’s a testament to her daring spirit.
“I'm just going to do me. I'm going to do what God sent me to do. I'm gonna make my mama proud. I'm going to make my fans proud. Aside from that, I really couldn't care less,” she says. “If you feel a certain way about me and my music and the way I dress, you'll be fine. I've always been my own person. I'm not going to change for anybody…. especially not now. I was very much my own person at the age of, like, 13.”
There’s pride in Starr's voice. She recalls a defining time from her childhood, when she attended a strict religious school, that sowed the seeds of her desire to forge and follow her own rules. “My teachers would say something like, ‘Women are not supposed to wear trousers.’ I would ask why, and I would get flogged for it,” Starr remembers. “It's normal to ask questions everywhere else…. Why can't I ask questions here? One time I painted just one of my nails pink, my teacher saw it in school, knelt me down and was like, ‘You are not gonna move forward with this type of behavior.’”
Adds Starr, “I feel like this made me who I am now. I learned not to conform to other people's mindsets.”
Starr sings about what she feels, what she’s seen, and what she wants. Her music is the soundtrack to her world, where the reality of overbearing societal standards are confronted by carefree rebellion. Despite her accomplishments and aptitude, though, she still experiences occasions when people underestimate her. As she steps deeper into stardom and adulthood, being an entertainer and maintaining professional and real-life relationships has come with a different set of growing pains.
The practice of setting boundaries, she notes, is a process she’s only recently started to implement. Developing friendships and professional relationships comes with ease for Starr, but maintaining and separating them has been strenuous. “I've had, like, three incidents [recently] that made me realize not everybody has to be my friend, we can just be working together," she says.
"I've been the kindest person. People that work for me that are way older than me — I would call them ‘ma’ or ‘sir.’ I'll put ‘auntie’ in front of their names,” she adds, referencing common Nigerian signs of respect when greeting older people. While detailing how respect from them would not be reciprocated, she sighs, reliving these moments of disappointment. “There's some things that happened that completely broke my heart.”
In Nigeria, the customs of properly greeting, bowing, curtsying, and being prostrate in the presence of older people are cultural traditions. No matter what, deference to older people is the standard. But as a younger person in a position of power, with authority over her brand and business, Starr sometimes feels conflicted. “It’s definitely one of my biggest weaknesses," she says. "I’ve dealt with people where I want to say something but I'm just like, ‘Oh, God, they are older than me, ooh, I can't talk [back].’ It's our culture, at the end of the day. But even here in Lagos, I still set my boundaries.”
