With her unique look and experimental sound, singer-songwriter Amaarae represents a new generation of musicians, unafraid to be authentically themselves. Raised between Ghana and the US, Amaarae grew up in a family with eclectic music taste – her mother favoured jazz, while her father listened to soul and RnB and her uncles played her old school hip hop and alternative rock – the range of sounds she grew up listening to amalgamated into her curiosity regarding music. But it was in her teens, when she moved back to Ghana from New Jersey, that she discovered a whole new group of peers expressing their love for music through experimentation. “The kids over here would be in the backroom in the computer lab making beats and recording songs during school hours. I was like, ‘Yo, what’s going on in the backroom?’” Amaarae tells us. From then on she started joining forces with the producers in her high school, making beats and songs. After a summer internship at a studio to learn about sound technology, she then took voice lessons in Atlanta, while studying creative writing at university, and it was there Amaarae the musician was born. Now based back in Ghana, preparing to release new music she has been working on, her sound has evolved into a fusion of genres. “It’s the first time I’m tapping into all of the cultures that influence me from like House music to rap, afrobeats, dancehall, punk music – everything,” she says.