Ghanaian American artist Amaarae will headline Princeton’s Fall 2025 Lawnparties this coming Sunday.
Student band Casual Riot will open the main stage before Amaarae performs. Lawnparties is a biannual event featuring a headlining performance in front of Frist Campus Center, as well as various artists hosted by the eating clubs on Prospect Avenue, food vendors, and other activities.
Amaarae is a singer and songwriter whose music combines elements of pop, R&B, alté, and afrobeats. She was born in the Bronx, New York and raised between Atlanta; New Jersey; and Accra, Ghana.
In April 2025, she became the first Ghanaian artist to perform a solo show at Coachella. Her most recent album, Black Star, debuted in August 2025 with more than 5 million streams. She is also known for her 2020 single “Sad Girlz Luv Money,” which gained international attention after a remix featuring Kali Uchis was released in 2021.
However, Amaarae also has a lower public profile than previous Lawnparties headliners, ranking below many of her predecessors in Instagram followers and Spotify listens.
Her performance will mark a genre shift from recent Lawnparties headliners, of which six of the past eight have been rappers.
The Lawnparties headliner announcement comes only four days before Amaarae is set to perform — the shortest time between the announcement and the event since Fall 2021.
Misa Mims ’27, one of the Lawnparties organizers, said in a statement to the Daily Princetonian, “I think everything about Amaarae is visionary. She’s an eclectic artist, and her music is infectious.”
Amaarae has also been outspoken about her views on gender, describing it as fluid rather than fixed. In interviews, she has said that “nothing is binary the way we’ve been taught to believe,” and has emphasized that qualities such as masculinity, femininity, and emotion exist on a spectrum.
Her approach to songwriting often reflects this perspective, with lyrics that shift between pronouns and avoid assigning gender to expressions of love or intimacy.
In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ another Lawnparties organizer, D’Schon Simmons ’27, said, “I’m genuinely thrilled that we’re welcoming Amaarae, a groundbreaking Afrobeat artist, to Princeton this year. Right now, it’s more important than ever to highlight diverse voices and showcase the richness of Black culture on our campus.”
The USG Social Committee has encouraged attendees to wear bohemian and lighter earth-tone colors. The day will also include inflatables, lawn games, and food vendors.
Vendors this semester will once again include Nomad, Tico’s, Rita’s, Taco Bell, and Cheesecake on a Stick; with new additions Alfalfa, Jammin’ Crepes, and Silver Line Wings. Kosher options will be available at Silver Line.
Safety and accessibility measures will include a quiet space, additional water stations, and collaborations with Public Safety and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS). The committee has also partnered with the Office of Sustainability and circulated a form for accommodation requests.
Amaarae is scheduled to perform at 3:00 p.m. on Sept. 7, although past headliners have often started their acts late.
Nico David-Fox is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Washington, D.C. and typically covers University operations.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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