Amaarae has nothing but praise for her Black Star collaborator PinkPantheress. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the Ghanaian American star — who featured PinkPantheress on “Kiss Me Thru the Phone Pt. 2” — opened up about their love for UK garage music and why she connected with her comments about having a high-pitched voice.
“PinkPantheress is such a genius. She’s very quirky and funny and strange in real life,” Amaarae told Rolling Stone of the singer, whom she first connected with back in 2020. “She was able to articulate a point that I’ve struggled to understand.”
In an interview ahead of her own album, PinkPantheress explained that she liked to keep her songs short because she thinks her pitched-up singing voice can sometimes be difficult to listen to for extended periods of time. “I think this is how I think my voice works best, and it’s how I write,” the singer said at the time, pointing to its high frequency. “I think my voice can be grating if it’s too much, because I have a specific tone of voice.”
Much of Amaarae’s music, as heard on Black Star, pivots between her different vocal deliveries. About Pink’s take, Amaarae said: “Yes, girl, exactly! You need to minimize the time that people hear your voice before it gets redundant or shrilly to the ear… From a production standpoint, she’s very right.”
Amaarae explained she and PinkPantheress bonded over their love of UK garage, and that Pink wanted to remix her Fountain Baby hit “Co-Star” at one point. Amaarae credits Pink with reintroducing the genre “to a new generation,” and commends her ability to impact the music industry so deeply through electronic music. “There’s no way you become an artist that impacts the world so deeply just through 20-second clips on TikTok,” she said. “You have to know what you’re doing.”
On their collaboration, PinkPantheress and Amaarae “take the concept of [Soulja Boy’s] ‘Kiss Me Thru the Phone’ even further.” Amaarae said her producer Steed sent Pink a beat to write over. What came back wasn’t just a verse, but “a whole joint written from top to bottom,” Amaarae said. Amaarae ended up re-shaping it by adding her own verses around PinkPantheress’ writing, turning it into what she calls a “proper duet” that interpolates Pink’s own “The Aisle.”
“I wanted to be a fan fiction and include her stuff because I’m such a fan of hers,” said Amaarae.
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Amaarae previously said she wanted to spotlight electronic music, “a genre that needs to go back home to its roots,” on the album. The album title, Black Star, is a triple entendre referencing herself, the Ghanaian flag, and the Black cultural roots of the dance music she blends on the record.
The album also featured artists such as Charlie Wilson, Bree Runway, and Naomi Campbell. When she spoke to Rolling Stone, she was in the midst of securing the features on her album. She was excited about Campbell, saying: “Naomi is the GOAT culturally and is cementing her legacy with a new generation of artists. That would be insane.”
