The Starrr of the Queen of Life (Loser Edition Black Marble Vinyl)

In ancient Babylonia, stargazers looked up at the cloudless night sky and saw a blazing ball of light. Burning brilliantly, the celestial body appeared to be a luminous sign from the great beyond. They were looking at what we now call Vega, the fifth-brightest star visible from Earth. Debby Friday was learning about these heavenly bodies in between nonstop touring across Europe, following the otherworldly success of her thunderous debut album GOOD LUCK, which dominated dance floors and took home the auspiciously astrological Polaris Prize upon its release in 2023. She learned about Vega and the way its placement in a birth chart lends the gifts of creativity, acclaim and bravery—as long as its recipient is humble enough to receive them.

On her kaleidoscopic second album, The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life, 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. I don’t want to follow a pre-set path, to do things ‘the way it's always been done.’” For the Nigerian-Canadian polymath, to be a starrr is to live at the extremes, the balance of public versus private, hubris versus humility, flying versus falling. “I don’t write all my thoughts down/ Scared of the permanency,” she sings at just above a whisper over a crystalline breakbeat on “Bet On Me.”