Ayra Starr’s “Commas” never spent a week on the French singles chart. On October 30, France’s recording industry body, SNEP, certified it Gold anyway, two years and nine months after the song came out.
That makes five Ayra songs with a French plaque, and only two of them are hers. “Rush” went Diamond in September 2023 after peaking at No. 5 and staying on the chart for 66 weeks. The other three came through guest verses: Ninho’s “No Love” went Gold in September 2024, Aya Nakamura’s “Hypé” reached Diamond in April 2025, and “Santa,” Rvssian’s song with Rauw Alejandro, went Gold last November.
“Commas” was the opening single for The Year I Turned 21 and sits third on its tracklist. The album only got as high as No. 72 in France, and the song never surfaced on the singles side. It got to Gold the slow way, on plays that kept adding up long after the rollout ended.
Tems, the closest comparison, has four French plaques, and three of them came from features on Dave’s “Raindance,” Future’s “Wait For U” and Wizkid’s “Essence,” leaving “Me & U” as the only one that belongs to her.
The timing helps Ayra’s next Paris night. She headlines the Zénith on January 24 on the Starrgirl World Tour, a room almost four times the size of the Bataclan she played in November 2023. Starrgirl, out since August 14, entered the French albums chart at No. 100, and none of its songs has a French plaque yet.