Bloody Samaritan
a song by Ayra Starr

"Bloody Samaritan" is a song recorded by Nigerian singer-songwriter Ayra Starr. It was released on 30 July 2021, as the lead single from her debut studio album, 19 & Dangerous (2021), through Mavin Records. Prior to its arrival on streaming platforms, the song premiered on BBC Radio 1Xtra. Written by Ayra Starr and produced by London, it is an Afropop song with empowering lyrics about pursuing one's dreams despite detractors and other people's negative opinions.
"Bloody Samaritan" received positive reception for its message and production. It peaked atop Nigeria's TurnTable Top 50, making Ayra Starr the first female artist in the history of the chart to reach number-one with a solo song. Outside Nigeria, it peaked at number 4 on the Afrobeats Singles Chart in the UK.
Background
During the week of 11 July 2021, Ayra Starr announced plans to release her debut studio album. On 19 July, she posted the teaser trailer for the new album on social media, revealing the title as 19 & Dangerous and its release date to be 6 August. In the same teaser, an excerpt of a 2001 Eartha Kitt interview can be heard, in which Kitt states: Life is not problematical. We make it problematical, because we are all listening to someone else, to something, without listening to ourselves.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bloody Samaritan” is a song by Ayra Starr. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bloody, Samaritan and song, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “a song by Ayra Starr” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q108208490. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021 and 2001.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bloody Samaritan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.