Mawuli has luxuriated in a fantasy of her own creation on Rich Girl, a sultry R&b groover that serves as the singer’s latest single.
Opening the glisten of spacey keys and atmospheric synths, the track quickly leans into its seductive rhythms with the assist of a snare-laden trap beat.
For a lesser artist, the sheer insatiability of the song’s production — so sumptuous it seems purpose-built for the bedroom — might’ve been enough, but Mawuli elevates the affair with mesmerising vocals.
Flitting from hushed, whispery tones to more sneering, rap-like cadences, Mawuli commands attention from the get-go, effortlessly mimicking the bouncy beats that envelope her.
On the rap front, Mawuli doles out quick verses in a timbre reminiscent of Summer Walker, and elsewhere croons with all the allure of a SZA cut.
Those comparisons alone are enough to sustain Rich Girl as a certified R&b-anger, but Mawuli goes a step further with evocative lyricism and clear confidence in her penmanship.
Here, the singer fantasises of material wealth, mustering the very same whimsies that Gwen Stefani pined for in 2004’s homonymous Rich Girl.
While that track veered more toward formulaic pop, Mawuli’s take on the sentiment feels like what you might get if Stefani decelerated the tempo and started slow-twerking instead.
It’s the kind of slow-groove beat — destined for a Dutty Wine — that recalls Doja Cat’s recent single Agora Hills, and Mawuli possesses a similar knack for curling her delivery around braggadocious bars.
In what reads like a prophecy should she continue releasing such good music, Mawuli dreams of being “a rich girl [with] diamonds and the pearls,” before telling a would-be suitor that her “price isn’t in your figure.”
Playful barbs like this (“I am conceited, I won’t even pretend”) allow Mawuli’s lyrics to shine just as effortlessly as the jewels she lusts for.
“I’ve always been a confident girl and I’m never afraid to take a risk when it comes to expressing myself,” Mawuli explained in a press statement.
Rich Girl is accompanied by an official music video, which was directed by Lucca Barone-Peters and follows the diamond-adorned singer during a shopping spree through designer stores. Watch that above.
Rich Girl is Mawuli’s second second of 2023, and follows on from the release of All I Need in June. The singer’s debut single, J + L, arrived in 2021. Bask in the riches of Mawuli with her new single Rich Girl below.
