DO WE STILL NEED “THE NEXT RIHANNA”?

Every few years, pop culture finds a new muse and instantly rushes to label them “the next someone.” It’s how the internet processes brilliance — by comparing it to what it already knows. So when Ayra Starr dropped her latest teaser with Rema — decked out in a fur-lined denim look, lip gloss glinting like 2007 — it didn’t take long before the comments rolled in: “She’s giving Rihanna.”

But what if she’s just giving Ayra Starr?

There’s a difference between influence and imitation. Rihanna’s early era was built on risk — reinvention, defiance, and the kind of attitude that rewrote what pop stardom could look like. Ayra’s doing the same thing now, only in a Lagos-to-London world that already knows how powerful a Black woman owning her aesthetic can be. She’s not chasing the Rihanna blueprint; she’s remixing it for her generation — bold, feminine, and globally Nigerian.

The nostalgia is undeniable. Rema’s studded leather and Ayra’s Y2K glam tap into a collective craving for eras that felt louder, messier, and more expressive. But this isn’t cosplay. It’s cultural recycling — Gen Z fashioning identity out of fragments of the past.

So no, Ayra Starr isn’t “the next Rihanna.” She’s part of the same lineage of women who made individuality the brand. And that’s the point — the icons we keep referencing walked so this new wave could sprint in their own stilettos.