Mostly recorded against the backdrop of Zanzibar’s resplendent beaches, Darkoo’s $exy Girl $ummer (Vol.1) is a joy-drenched dedication to the period of the year that’s she’s laid a claim to ruling, and the gender that primarily serves as a muse for her art. “I’ve been making music for women because every woman is beautiful and sexy,” Darkoo tells Apple Music. “At first, I had different names for the EP, but when the whole project came together, we were having a conversation, and someone said I make music for sexy girls, and it made sense. $exy Girl $ummer (Vol.1) is because I make music for sexy girls, and we’re dropping it in the summer.” Ever perceptive, Darkoo has surmised that most of the music supposedly released for women these days isn’t intuitively catered to them. “A lot of the top people in the game who are making music aren’t making music for girls,” she explains. “They are making music that women like, but it’s not about them, and that’s what I’m doing. I want them to feel like the sexiest women in the world.” It’s a task she aims to achieve across the eight tracks carefully suited to summer reverie while retaining the joie de vivre that has made her music inescapable since 2019’s “Gangsta.” There are callbacks to the 2000s era of Afrobeats, as well as dancehall, but it all works in service of Darkoo’s vision of platforming women’s enjoyment and pleasure without inhibition. “It should be the playlist that every woman out there is playing while doing their makeup, on the way to a party, or while in another country,” she asserts. “I want these songs to be their anthems. I want women to feel something because this project is about them.” Below, Darkoo talks us through the album, track by track. “Like Dat” “‘Like Dat’ was one of the first tracks we made in Zanzibar. One of the producers there and I had worked on a beat, and I told him that we’d work on it when we got to Zanzibar. We played that beat, but as soon as they heard this one, everyone was like, ‘Yeah, cool.’ The next morning, we just added melodies to it, and I went back to write the lyrics on it. I previewed it on TikTok, and the rest is history. It was produced by FR3NCH, Enzo Fresh, and Sparbz.” “Stay” “‘Stay’ was probably the second track we did. I love that song a lot because of how it makes me feel. The process of this came about from us just listening to music. FR3NCH would wake up by 9 am and just be playing music. I would wake up later and be the last one to be up, but FR3NCH already has the music going. He started the chords on ‘Stay,’ and he’s booming this music by the way. My bedroom is just right next to the pool, so I just hear it as I wake up, and I’m asking, ‘Yo, what’s that?’ I just went to wake up everyone else, and we started rocking with it. The song is about a girl who you meet for a motive, and she’s acting up a little bit, but you know that she wants to stay. You know, the first time you meet a girl, she wants to do a little bit of shakara [posing or showing off]. It’s like, ‘I know you want to stay, so just stay with me, don’t be fronting.’” “Psycho” (with Victony) “Victony sent me a song around April [2025] for me to lay a verse on. I had my show around then, so I didn’t have much time to record. I finally got to record a verse on it, and I called Victony and asked him what his plans for the song were. He loved it, but he didn’t have plans for it right now. So, I told him, ‘Yo, could you give me the record?’ He was a bit ‘ahh’ about giving it to me, but I told him to trust me because I love the record, and all I had to do was go back to the studio and sing more on the record so it would be him and I telling an amazing story. It adds a different sense of sound to the project, and it’s a beautiful song.” “Focus on Me (All the Sexy Girls in the Club)” “It came with a lot of drama, but it’s one of my favorite songs. I came out for Davido at a show he did in Amsterdam. After that, I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes, I have these moments when I won’t be able to sleep at all. My head would just be hot. I always tell myself that it’s God trying to put ideas in my head. So, I was just on YouTube playing different old-school music. I grew up on P-Square. Growing up in Nigeria, there’s no way you won’t know them. They were and are the biggest and most iconic guys on the scene. For me, when it comes to sampling, I’m not just picking the biggest, hottest songs. I picked ‘Gimme Dat’ because the chords on that one were immaculate, and that’s what it comes down to. There’s this app I use to listen to the beat without the vocals. I can listen to the bass, the chords, the 808s, and everything. I could just tell that this song would be crazy. I took my phone and just recorded that opening line. I was also listening to a Jamaican song I can’t remember around that time, and one thing I’ve noticed from listening to Jamaican songs is that they begin the song with something mad. So, I wanted to start this song with something different, too. It was like a mad thought through project, and it was so fun at the same time.” “Your Number” “I had a show in Dubai, and I was just scrolling through to find songs to possibly sample. I kept listening back to [9ice’s 2008 single] ‘Gongo Aso’ because I’ve always wanted to sample it. I reached out to [producer and record label founder] ID Cabasa first, ID was lovely. He linked me up with his manager, and we got talking. We had the whole clearance stuff sorted out. We’ve had this one sitting in the bag for a bit.” “Options” “‘Options’ was made in Zanzibar. It’s a mellow type of island music. I feel like it was a perfect fit in the project, from the melodies and everything we did on it. It just has sweetness to it. It’s a track that you can just sit on the beach and listen to, and move your body a little bit. It was produced by FR3NCH, Enzo Fresh, and Sparbz.” “Favourite Girl” (with Rema) “Big tune, summer tune. I sent Rema a DM a couple of weeks after the song dropped. He’s my guy. We have mutuals because of Ayra [Starr], who’s one of my close friends. He said, ‘How far nau, I didn’t see this.’ I didn’t even say, ‘How are you? Hope you’re well.’ I just said, ‘Bro, how far, I get song. What you saying?’ He asked me to send the space. I sent it, and within 48 hours, he sent it back. I was like, ‘Yeah, go time.’ We did a preview at Wireless, and that moment was surreal, I can’t lie.” “Right Now” (with Davido and Rvssian) “At that point, I was a bit panicky after ‘Favourite Girl.’ I was like, ‘Shit, what’s next?’ I had loads of songs, and when you have a lot of songs, you’re just not sure. So, I just kept going to the studio. We started the idea at Afro Nation. I liked it, but I never really went back because there was so much going on at that time. On my way to the studio one time, I was just listening again and I said, ‘This song is a fucking banger.’ I said we were going to finish this up in the studio. I just previewed it, and it went crazy. Davido must have seen the preview. He reached out in the DMs and told me, ‘I love this record, send a space.’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ I sent it, and everything was just smooth from there.”