Ayra Starr, a Nigerian singer, has recently shared that she gained admission to university at the age of 14.
She mentioned that she completed her degree early as per her mother’s requirement to finish her education before diving into her music aspirations to become a teenage pop star.
This revelation came during a recent interview with Billboard News, a prominent American media outlet.
She wrote:
“I got into the university at 14. I feel like my mum has been using music to blackmail me since I was a child. She was like, ‘If you want to do music, you have to do this.’ When she suggested we relocate to Lagos from Benin Republic, I declined initially, but she convinced me that Lagos is the land of music.
“She insisted that if I want to do music, I would have to finish school first. Usually, a lot of people in Nigeria finish secondary school at 15, 16. I knew that if I waited till I’m 15 [before completing my secondary school], I won’t be able to be a teenage pop star. And I wanted to be a teenage pop star. So, I joined my elder brother and wrote JAMB, what you guys called SAT here.
“To be honest, the result wasn’t crazy to get me onto all these Ivy League schools but it was enough to pass by. It was enough for my mum. I got admitted into a good school.
My course was for three years. It was International Relations. And immediately after my graduation, I started doing music covers online and that same year I got signed [to Mavin Records label].”
