Debby Friday – The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life

On her kaleidoscopic second album, The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life, Debby Friday defines success on her own terms. “I want to be a starrr, I can't hide that desire,” she says. “But what I don't want is to live someone else’s dream or to follow a pre-set path.” For the Nigerian-Canadian polymath, to be a starrr is to live at the extremes: public versus private, hubris versus humility, flying versus falling.

Being a starrr means embracing the apocalyptic hedonism of an all-night rave—finding communion in the “dark room, girls in line for the bathroom” on the buzzing house anthem “All I Wanna Do Is Party”. It means swapping lines about bottles on ice and getting freaky on the dance floor with Detroit techno prodigies HiTech on “In The Club”—while admitting that she is, in fact, “barely on the dance floor these days.” It’s the sound of discovering what comes after the kind of success most artists only dream about—how to burn brightly without burning out. Across 11 songs, The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life showcases Friday’s chameleonic vocals. From the sparse, gossamer beauty of the lovelorn “Leave.” to the locomotive post-punk of “Darker The Better.”