Amaarae

Amaarae pronounces her name "ah-muh-ray." Not to be confused with Amerie ("ay-marie"), the singer who had a big hit in 2005 with "1 Thing."

She was born in New York City but moved to Ghana, where her parents are from, when she was an infant. She lived in Atlanta around 2004 when artists like Ciara and T.I. were on the rise, and then she moved to New Jersey, where most of the kids in her school were white and into artists like Green Day and Britney Spears. She went to Ghana in 2008 for high school, armed with many musical influences that she combined with African music to craft her sound.

She releases her music on her own label, Golden Child Entertainment. In 2022 she partnered with Interscope so she'd have better distribution, but she maintains full creative control as essentially her own label boss.