30.

Album ∙ R&B/Soul ∙ 2025

Queen Naija

The day Queen Naija turned 30, she knew exactly how she wanted to honor the occasion. “I wanted to hike a mountain,” she tells Apple Music’s Ebro Darden. “So, I did it. I just wanted to do something that was really empowering, something I’d never done before, and to challenge myself. And when I got up there, I was able to see the sunset, and it was beautiful. It was serene.”

After years of documenting the highs and lows of her life online, the YouTube star turned R&B singer is learning to quiet the noise. “I used to be such an oversharer,” she says. “Now I’m trying to find the balance between maintaining my peace and family while staying true and relatable.” Looking back on her twenties, she sees how heartbreak and healing have shaped the woman she is now. She walks through that growth on 30., a project that marks both a personal reset and creative evolution. “People know me as, like, the heartbreak girl, the lover girl, and that’s my core. I am. But I also want people to know that, like, outside of that, I’m really an artist. I was born to do this. I can do anything. I can sing anything.”

Executive produced by No ID (Kanye West, JAY-Z, J. Cole) and Poo Bear (Justin Bieber, USHER, Lupe Fiasco), 30. is the most fun she’s had making music since her 2020 debut, missunderstood, and it sounds like it. She radiates That Girl energy on “put it on (eat)…,” a sassy self-love anthem for both get-ready playlists and the club, proclaiming, ”Forgive me if I shine too bright/My heart’s full of light.” And yes, she’s still a lover girl, hyping up her ride-or-die on “my man…” and embracing her sensuality, narrating the heightened anticipation of waiting for a lover to come home (“tipsy…”) and the intimacy that follows (“rain…”). “Even though this is a versatile project, I really wanted people to know, like, I’m still here, still R&B,” she says of the latter song.

Amid the fun and creative experimentation, 30. still makes space for vulnerability. Riding an Afrobeat groove, Queen lets go of a past love with maturity (“what u lookin 4 [wyl4]...”) and requires that her next match her energy (“i deserve…”). But it’s the title track’s stormy, self-deprecating introduction that lays her bare, exposing her flaws. “Some of the recording was me just ranting in the studio, and I was like, ‘Wait, keep that on there,’” she recalls. But like sun peeking through the clouds, the song is cautiously hopeful: “Please be sweet to me/Don’t you do me dirty,” she pleads to the decade ahead, while also reminding herself, “You got this, pop yo’ shit.” 30. is Queen Naija stepping into her highest self. “It seems like you have to have some sort of drama for a rollout, and I’m just like, I don’t know. Not everything is about a relationship,” she says. “What if I’m literally just a woman trying to figure it out? I’m just really trying to figure it out.”