Consumer Guide Album

Amaarae: Fountain Baby [Interscope, 2023]
OK, maybe she is sex-obsessed--she can afford it. For sure this is as unabashedly erotic and indeed pornographic an album as I can recall, which I say as a heterosexual male who responds more warmly to the varied vaginas she lusts after than I ever did to the panoply of oversized hip-hop dicks that have long since passed from my memory. Her portion of fame proud and earned, her voice simultaneously fragile and self-possessed, her star-time comforts and advantages acknowledged without vanity or apology, she doesn't so much boast about her crushes, trysts, and conquests as lay them out lubriciously or matter-of-factly as the cherished rewards of a lifestyle I wouldn't be surprised to learn she's exaggerating. From "Reckless and Sweet" to "Come Home to God," from "All My Love" to "Sociopathic Dance Queen," she appreciates what she's got without taking it for granted, and without assuming there are no more chapters to her story. A-