Popular singer and songwriter, Oyinkansola Sarah, known professionally as Ayra Starr’s hit single, Rush, has been certified Diamond winner in France by the National Syndicate of Phonographic Publishing (SNEP) after it surpassed 500,000 units in sales. This announcement was made in a post on SNEP’s official social media accounts on Monday, September 11.

The single reached the summit of TurnTable Top 100, which is Nigeria’s only aggregate chart. It has also garnered over 240 million streams on Spotify that makes it one of the most streamed Afrobeats songs on the platform, and has accumulated 232 million views on YouTube.

Released on September 16, 2022 as part of the deluxe version of her debut album 19 & Dangerous under the imprint of Don Jazzy-led Mavin Records, the hit single has enjoyed commercial success, topping charts in Canada, France and the United Kingdom.

Since she posted her first original song on her Instagram page in December 2019, which brought her close to Don Jazzy, who signed her as an artiste in his record label, Mavin Records, Ayra Starr has continued to show off as one of the fastest-growing talents on the African music scene.

She achieved mainstream recognition in early 2021 with her eponymous debut extended play and its hit track, Away, which spent two consecutive weeks at number four on Nigeria’s TurnTable Top 50 chart.

The song also peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Top Triller Global chart, paving way for the release of her first full-length mixtape, 19 & Dangerous, released in 2021.

Categorised mainly as Afropop and R&B, the mixtape received favourable reception and spawned two top 40 hits in Nigeria, with the lead song, Bloody Samaritan, topping the Top 50 chart, thus, becoming the first solo song by a female artiste to reach the number-one position.