Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Ayra Starr is a multiple Grammy and Mobo Award nominee, for hit songs like Rush, Commas, Sability and Gimme Dat
Music correspondent Published 7 hours ago There's resilience, and then there's Ayra Starr.
Two weeks before the release of her new album, Starrgirl, the Nigerian singer posted a photo from hospital, after undergoing "major surgery".
"I was hoping it would be a quick recovery, but it was more complicated than they expected," she told fans , external , without disclosing the nature of the procedure.
Within seven days, she was back in the dance studio, rehearsing for forthcoming performances with a large bandage strapped across her stomach. TV appearances, fan events and live performances followed.
"I'm healing," she told the US breakfast TV show, Today. "I have strength today. I'm so happy I was able to even be here today and be able to do this."
It's a display of the tenacity and ambition that's defined Starr's career to date.
Discovered singing covers on YouTube at the age of 18, she became the first African woman to win best international act at the Mobo Awards, and the first Nigerian woman to surpass one billion video views on YouTube.
In 2024, she was the first Afrobeats artist to play Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage – and finished her set by declaring she'd return as a headliner. Last year, she modelled for Di Petsa at London Fashion Week, closing their show in a white lace two-piece, flanked by an angel.
So it's hardly a surprise that Starr pitches up to our interview with a sort of celestial confidence. She's given to grand proclamations like "I'm unstoppable", or "I will exist in multitudes". But somehow, she never sounds arrogant or conceited.
Image source, Ayra Starr Image caption, The musician posted photos as she recovered from surgery last month
That's probably due to a sense of humour so dry it could soak up a tsunami. Starr is criminally sarcastic, and delights in winding people up.
For example: When music legend Stevie Wonder phoned to congratulate Starr on a Grammy nomination, she goaded him into a playful argument about zodiac signs.
"I was trying to one-up him every single time, and he was trying to one-up me. It was almost like a battle," she recalls.
Starr eventually got to the point where she told Wonder, a Taurus, that "Tauruses ain't crap".
"I'm sure he was like, 'Who is this? What do you want from me?' But it was a very cute conversation. I respect it."
It's an unorthodox approach to making friends, but it seems to work.
Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Starr was invited to support Coldplay on their Music of the Spheres tour, and Chris Martin gave feedback on songs from her second album, The Year I Turned 21
Over the course of her career, Starr's hooked up with Coldplay, Tyla, David Guetta, Le Sserafim and Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child.
Her new album boasts collaborations with Afrobeats legends Wizkid and Rema, as well as One Direction's Zayn Malik and rising R&B singer KWN.
The album is her first under a new management deal with Jay-Z's Roc Nation, and a relocation to New York. Leaving Lagos was a big upheaval, she confessed in an essay posted to her Substack last year. , external
"New York is basically a walk-in freezer with rent," she wrote. "It's so cold it feels like the city is actively trying to unalive my motiv…