Amaarae explains how strip clubs and Babyface helped shape some of her best music

Amaarae is ready to give the world her all but on her terms. The 29-year-old Ghanaian-American songstress with one of the most unique voices in music put out three solo projects over six years. But, after her Dreamville Festival performance, she’s promising REVOLT a constant flow of music going forward, including previewing a few lyrics off an unreleased song she can’t wait to give fans.

“So, it goes... ‘He told me, ‘Baby, I'm worried/To fall in love with no worries’/I'm popping p**sy, come hurry/The FaceTime not working,’” Amaarae exclusively revealed to REVOLT.

In this installment of “Studio Sessions,” the Fountain Baby singer explained the strip club origins of her favorite songs, recording in a makeshift pulpit, and how Babyface helped her stop writing “bulls**t” lyrics. Read the exclusive chat below.

Which songs from your Dreamville Festival set had memorable sessions?

“Angels in Tibet.” I recently found a video on my phone of the day we made it. We were so wasted, and I remember I had the boys down in my home country in Ghana. I brought all my producers down for a camp. We're in the studio one day, just kicking [it], and my producer [Kyu Steed] starts playing this beat, and I'm like, “Oh, that's tight.”

Meanwhile, we’re all just knocking back shots. Then, I came out of nowhere and started freestyling. We all got together, taking the mic and doing different freestyles. While I was recording the demo, I was drunk just telling people, “Hey, change that. Do that.” It was a very collaborative record. I think it was the most collaborative record on the album.

How does it feel when you get huge reactions on stage for songs that started out like that?

It’s so crazy because you make a song, like it, but you don’t know what will happen after that. I loved “Angels in Tibet,” but I thought it was far too complex of a record for people to gravitate toward. I thought a simpler record like “Co-Star” might be what people gravitate toward. So, to see people love “Angels” because it's just a dope record is amazing. We were making it as music nerds. We just wanted to do some s**t that's fun and can be very layered. When we think about how we made that record, it's hard to replicate it because it's so well-engineered. It’s like architecture; it's a very well-structured and made song.

Events like Dreamville Festival are where music peers converge backstage. Are there any artists here with whom you’d like to collaborate?

I might have to slip over and see what Teezo [Touchdown] is doing. I'm a big fan of what he's been doing recently.

What do you typically need in the studio to make your best music?

I need good people like those with whom I've been making music for the last six to seven years. I need a fun vibe. We have to get some drinks in there. They smoke weed, I don’t, so we’ll get the weed in there. Every once in a while, we might hit the strip club and come back to the studio, and that has created many wonderful records.

What about the strip club gets you in a creative mood?

The strip club feels like a sanctuary to me. I really love to patronize and support women in the arts. I consider it the arts. Every time I go, the strippers show me love, and I think it's fun to just let loose and let the girls do their thing and enjoy it. I can't really say what it is. It's just a magical, very enchanting experience for me.

Are there any other memorable studio sessions from the Fountain Baby album?

Honestly, most of the most memorable studio sessions have been for that album. One of the cool things we did while working on the album was every song we wrote, when it was time for me to cut the vocals, the guys would decorate the booths for me. We have a song called “Sociopathic Dance Queen,” so we had strobe lights and a disco ball in the booth. We have a song on the album called “Wasted Eyes” that has an Asian theme, so they put Chinese lanterns and red lights in there. We have a song called “Come Home To God,” and they designed the booth as a pulpit.

Is there an unreleased song -- collaborative or solo -- that you hope comes out one day?

I have this song called “Low-Key,” which is an old-school, dancehall-mixed-with-lover’s-rock record. But the lyrics are very current. I’ve been trying to find a way to put it out, but it doesn't fit on any projects, and it doesn't fit with anything we're doing right now.

Can you share a lyric from it?

Yeah. So, it goes, “He told me, ‘Baby, I'm worried/To fall in love with no worries’/I'm popping p**sy, come hurry/The FaceTime not working.”

That sounds strip club-inspired.

It might just be (laughs). It’s a really fun song. I need to think about how I'm going to drop that.

Who did you collaborate with that also taught you something?

It was definitely Babyface. He’s one of the greatest songwriters of our time. So, imagine having a front seat to seeing how he writes songs. He's so meticulous, it’s insane, and he’s so good at telling everyday stories. When we were writing the record that we did [“One Good Thing“], every time, he would ask, “What's the end goal for that line? Why does it lead to the next line? What story is it telling me?” He was very big about connecting each line to make the story relatable.

After I did that session with Babyface, I called up all my producers and my co-writer [Mason "Maesu" Tanner], and I told them, “Come back to Ghana. We have to rewrite the album.” That's a true story; I did that just from those two sessions with Babyface. I went back to what I made and thought, “Some of these lyrics are bulls**t. We have to actually make good lyrics.”

What do you have coming for the rest of 2024?

We're releasing a deluxe version of the album, and I'm supposed to release an EP later this year. We're going to keep the records coming, keep the records flowing.

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