Amaarae has never been afraid of the erotic. Truly, the Ghanaian-American artist has spent years cultivating a sound that is both radically specific and thrillingly omnivorous, a globe-trotting collage of alté, R&B, and electro-pop. But her persona is just as fluid: a sensual provocateur one moment, a heartbroken poet the next, all delivered with that feather-light, almost bratty tone she’s perfected. What started as a left-of-center, falsetto-laced Afro-fusion has now bloomed into something closer to pop futurism. “S.M.O.” is another reminder that Amaarae doesn’t need anyone’s permission to run her race and win.

“S.M.O.” (short for “Slut Me Out”) is, in the simplest terms, a house track. But with Amaarae, nothing is ever that simple. The global pop landscape is currently obsessed with dancefloor records, and the singer’s always been a step ahead. The track is built from a dizzying blueprint, revealing a seemingly impossible cocktail of influences: the ’80s Ghanaian highlife of Ata Kak bumps against a drum roll nodding to both Magic System’s “1er Gaou” and Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You,” and an infectious zouk melody. She described it herself as her Donna Summer meets Janet Jackson moment. The beat is a relentless, four-on-the-floor pulse, but the edges are frayed with the raw, lo-fi thrum of Kak’s DIY experiments. Amaarae’s vocals, breathy and intoxicating, glide over the top.

Amaarae has always played with fluidity, in sound, in fashion, in desire. On this track, her artistic persona leans into an explicit queerness that has long been present in her work; brought to the forefront with a thrilling directness as she sings, “I’m wavy, I wanna taste her…/ I wanna week with her, she taste like Lexapro… / She slutty, I need her loose.”

Like everything Amaarae does, “S.M.O.” is fun. Dangerous fun. It’s also part of her boldest swings at global pop dominance yet. Where her earlier work thrived in the alt-pop/Afrobeats hybrid lane, this one is positioned for international club rotation. It’s sweaty, it’s playful, and it feels like the kind of track that soundtracks the wild, slightly blurry moments of a good summer.