Before "Nasty," only the niche knew Tinashe's track record. Maybe that speaks to her humility or to the trials of the industry—no matter the case, she rose to the demands of a megastar with a newfound billion eyeballs on her already-stacked discography and let them play catch-up. Now, two years past Quantum Baby, she's staring into a two-way mirror, dissecting what it means to be a pop star with the genre police at every turn and the ever-present public, who just want to dance. And she wants to dance too—to the beat of her own drum, on her own terms. Can Tinashe build the perfect pop star, or is it already in her?

It's a sticky summer Wednesday in SoHo. NY, 4:45 pm, and the windows of 66 Greene are blacked out in an effort to keep unwanted light and eyeballs in. At one point in time, a brick hub like this housed premier artisans, and you might find Andy Warhol snapping a photo of Grace Jones or Basquiat bumming a cig from Madonna. Today is no different; only a new generation is
making its mark.

A cigarette hangs out of his mouth—he adjusts the color on his laptop, which is connected to the live feed of the scene they just created hours before.

“You need time to find the shot,” photographer Alexi says to Brandon, the creative director. They’ve captured lightning in a bottle, and the sparks of electrical current still linger on their skin, eyes still gazing longingly at the images created.

“Lower!”

The clamshell beauty dish drops.

A petite woman, to whom all eyes are on, wears a neon pink wig and doubles down in her pose, contorting further with not the slightest bit of difficulty.

Britney Spears' "Slave 4 U” plays over the custom speakers.

The lights are low and saturated. The props are weighted. Men in all black carry metal gates (the kind you see at a warehouse rave) off the set.

Tinashe hops off the stage to review the images, with a Coke bottle in her hand, the classic glass-shaped kind. After the spiced liquid hits her lips... Tinashe says…
“So good.”

We all know who Tinashe is. But who is Tinashe? She’s poured into countless projects exploring the very sentiment through the lens of metaphysics, sensuality, and autonomy, and we're still lined up on the cafeteria line, looking for more crumbs.

Tinashe kept us well-fed in 2024 with Quantum Baby hits "Nasty" and "No Broke Boys," but she took some time (2 years, and that's a while for her) to dissect not just herself after a surge in global attention but also to pick apart what it means to be a pop star.

'Popstar,' her 8th studio album, is said to explore what the fuck even is a pop star, for Tinashe and maybe even for listeners.

I’m in my bedroom. Tinashe phones in over Zoom from LA, with only a few days until her Outside Lands performance in San Francisco, followed by a string of flights and work engagements.

GYASI: All right, cool. New era, new era—I want you to close out the old one for me, so let's bring it back to ‘Quantum Baby.' That felt so interesting because you've been through, at least from my perspective as a listener, so many different iterations of Tinashe—finding yourself, reinventing yourself—and you kind of rode your own wave to get to this point.

TINASHE: Kind of like you just said—all the things I've been through have really led me to where I am now, to this album, this concept, this world, this confidence, and this sense of self.

GYASI: And by concept, you mean the breaking down and dissecting of the pop star, right?

TINASHE: Yeah, exactly. And I think also, in a sense, owning that as a title—as a self-concept as well.

GYASI: Crash Out and Too Easy… In my opinion, both felt like intrusive thoughts brought to the surface. Did I say that out loud? I meant it—you know what I mean.

TINASHE: It’s kind of raw and unfiltered, and that's how I look at this era and how I'm presenting myself. And also a calculatedness, in a sense, but in a tongue-in-cheek way—playing with the idea of being sarcastic and being serious at the same time, holding both of those truths simultaneously. Also spectacle and performance.

GYASI: Since you're talking about spectacle—I think spectacle runs congruent with what we see as the archetype of the pop star, the stunts, the moments, the redefining eras—I'm trying to understand what redefining "pop-starism" is for you. We know the archetypes: Britney, Janet, Madonna… we've seen what's been done. Are you grabbing the baton here, or are you walking off the track and making your own way?

TINASHE: It’s both, honestly—that's the fun part of it. To me, I've always felt like a pop star and felt like what I bring to the table, regardless of what the music sounds like—literally, in terms of genre. I think "pop star" exists beyond just a music genre; it's a persona, an attitude, an embodiment of all these things coming together. As you said, there are all these legends and greats, so I think it's me basically claiming that for myself—but also, it's regardless of what the music sounds like. I don't have to fit into these molds or boxes to claim that title or into this super specific, whitewashed, sanitized archetype of what that means.

[On the album] I'm playing with a lot of different sounds that feel outside what people would consider the most traditional or cliché version of a pop song. Over time that's changed so much, and I think maybe now more than ever there's a really narrow understanding of what that is, and I just don't subscribe to that. So this album plays with a lot of different influences sonically—dance, R&B, hip-hop, pop, and even some country.

GYASI: So this is "pop" as in popular, not "pop" as in genre?

TINASHE: I think the genre of pop is all of those things—it's just been watered down and made into this really simple thing, which I don't necessarily agree with. Over time, there have been so many pop songs with influence from dance, hip-hop, country, or R&B, and those have never been questioned as to whether they're a pop song or not—but I think a lot of that comes down to the presentation of who's singing the song. That's a whole other can of worms.

GYASI: I love that the concept of a pop star is the mood board, and then you're hacking at it, figuring out what it means.

TINASHE: Exactly. Then unpacking that over the course of—it took around two years, honestly, to complete this project. That's one of the longer periods I've spent on an album, because I usually crank them out pretty fast.

GYASI: How tapped into the internet are you? The discourse of “Tinashe is on the mood board"... Do you see it?

TINASHE: I am chronically online. I see it.

GYASI: I don't know if you've talked about this, but when we get to the K-pop of it all—are you internalizing this, or is your energy more like, "If I'm going to be on the mood board, I'm going to give you something new that you can't keep up with"?

TINASHE: Yeah, absolutely. To be real, I think the conversation extends way further than K-pop, and I think that's pigeonholed it a bit, because people are kind of taking it as a joke, and it's a dead-ass conversation at this point, honestly.

But my overall attitude toward people copying or being inspired by me is simply that it's a privilege to be part of the creative conversation on a bigger level—to see that kind of feedback from the universe, that your ideas are good ideas and other people are inspired by them, and those become jump-off points.

GYASI: I love that response. In terms of your relationship with the internet, and by extension, your fans—are you pivoting in how you present yourself on social? I saw you kind of double down in the past era.

TINASHE: It's interesting, because yeah, I've had very different relationships with the public and how I want to be perceived. I even explored concepts of surveillance and perception in QB …what it feels like to be made to perform but also wanting to be part of the performance. I think the biggest difference between now and me in the past is that I'm owning that in a way that makes sense to me, because it used to rub up against the instinct of wanting to be "a real artist," quote-unquote.

GYASI: So getting into performance: you're the choreo queen. But I'm curious—what's on your reference board for direction and movement right now? I'm seeing a lot of Bob Fosse revival across the pop girls at the moment, and I'm curious if you're moving in a different direction.

TINASHE: I've been searching a bit for who's going to be my next big collaborator when it comes to choreography. So far, so good — we've just started reworking the show for Outside Lands, and I'm really excited about the direction we're going.

Overall, with the era being "Pop Star," I really wanted to highlight more about myself again, in a sense. As much as I love dancers, and dancing on stage is a huge part of what I love about a show, I think on my last tour I was really thinking about myself as part of the picture—and now I'm thinking about it more literally, in terms of how to enhance my own movement and what I'm doing. So I'm taking a more classic pop-star approach—it's all about me, every move well thought out—kind of a Janet Jackson energy. That's where we're going.

GYASI: Can you get more specific—because Janet has so many iterations? What era of Janet are we talking about?

TINASHE: Not like Rhythm Nation — a bit more feminine, more in her womanhood. A little later, like 30-year-old Janet —

GYASI: ‘Velvet Rope’?

TINASHE: ‘Velvet Rope’! Maybe into ‘All for You ', when she's just in her full bad-baddie energy.

GYASI: Got it. So what I'm taking from this is — you want people to see you for you,

TINASHE: I feel like people have had an introduction and beyond an introduction, but there are a lot of different perceptions and understandings of who I am, what my music is, and what my career has looked like—and this is kind of putting a stamp on it.

GYASI: Well, I'm very happy for you — that sounds exciting. Are you having fun?

TINASHE: Yeah, it's so fun! Honestly, my favorite part is right before an album drops — I describe it as like Christmas, the holiday season. It's the best, it's really fun. And then when Christmas happens, it's kind of over.

GYASI: Didn't you make a holiday album? Did I make that up?

TINASHE: I did. I want to finish that — it's on my to-do list, to make like seven more songs and do a part two. I love Christmas.

GYASI: What are you most excited about for this era?

TINASHE: I don't know—I guess I'm excited for people to hear the entirety of the project. I think it gets better within the context of itself. I really make projects with the whole project in mind, so I think people will enjoy hearing the range of the entire thing.

GYASI: But selfishly, for you—not Tinashe the artist, Tinashe the person—what are you most excited about?

TINASHE: I honestly don't even know—they're so intertwined; that's kind of the answer. I guess I'm excited for just seeing where this takes me next, creatively, because that's also really fun—when you have a fresh batch of inspiration because the world is giving you that feedback. I'm excited to see what that inspires.

I shut my laptop and think about the energy behind our chat. That same energy used to command the shoot at 66 Greene.

“Now I can't see! ” Tinashe makes a cute face and gingerly gestures for someone to move out of the way of the monitor.

She has never been more in charge of herself than she is right now.

“Oh, that's SICK!, she says.

The set breaks down, and the lights come back on, and she says her goodbyes to all with grace and kindness. Out walks a pop star.