Tinashe Zooms in from a day off while on tour, camera decidedly off, heart emoji next to her name. She’s grounding at her home in the Hollywood Hills with her cat, PJ — in other words, choosing not to be perceived at her home in the Hollywood Hills with her cat, PJ. Understandable, honestly. Hers is a rare respite in the middle of a grueling schedule that in a couple days will take her to Washington, D.C., and that has already been punctuated by more than a dozen shows across the country. At L.A.’s Greek Theatre, in Atlanta, and in Brooklyn. There’s a global leg to follow through the rest of the year and into the following, including Australia, Berlin and Dublin. That’s many nights of being perceived, of turning it out for a sea of surveilling eyes.
The truth: Tinashe won’t even bother pretending like she doesn’t thrive in environments like this; she derives energy from them. Her Leo moon has always been a road map, and her music is full of warnings. (“I got stamina / they say I’m an athlete,” being one.) They crystallize as you witness her onstage or in her music videos, conjuring a kind of pop-girl brujeria, with a look that says: I’m a grease-stained postapocalyptic baddie who is making art and dropping it low in the face of life’s paradoxes.
Tinashe understands what the act of performance takes on a cellular level. She’s been in the game too long not to — first as a child actor and for the last decade-plus as a singer and producer. To be alive is to perform, and to deduce when the performance stops, or is supposed to stop, is tricky. Maybe also futile. For Tinashe, the incongruity of being the kind of person who has their Zoom camera off a day after they sang about seduction, repulsion and red flags in front of thousands seems the entire point.
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Any sentient being will confirm it: Tinashe’s had a year. The kind that might be studied in the decades to come. There was the virality of it all, of course: “Nasty” birthed memes to match your freak, a new rhetorical question — mantra, really — for a generation of people daring someone to meet them at their level. But the album released this past summer, “Quantum Baby” — the second project in a trilogy Tinashe is unfolding over time — shows her as an artist who is most comfortable with the unknown, with the things that don’t make sense, mostly about her own desires and needs. It’s the kind of observation that takes years to clock and even more years to accept. She’s daring us to meet her on her level too: an Aquarius prone to an internet rabbit hole. A producer, her thumbprints evident in a track’s chic minimalism or ooze of West Coast. An artist for whom this moment has been coming — you just haven’t been paying close enough attention, her fans will tell you. Tinashe, who was, is and forever will be, a performer.
Julissa James: I want to start with talking to you about creative control. I feel like with this specific project and tour, you have really created a world. You’re in everything — you’re a producer, you write your own music, you have been heavily involved in the creative direction of what this roll-out looks like and what the tour looks like in every step. I’m also the type of person that is extremely obsessive about building creative worlds.
Tinashe: It matters.
JJ: It matters so much. Can you walk me through why that was important to you and what this world — in terms of the tour and the album and just this moment in your life — looks, feels and sounds like?
T: For “Quantum Baby,” the concept started with thinking about my life, looking at it at a very granular level and the contradictions and the paradoxes that lie within who I am, both as a person and as a creative. I was really inspired by the concept of surveillance, as well as the idea of being perceived and how we grapple with the contradictions and paradoxes of that, which is very “Quantum Baby”-esque. We’re constantly being perceived, and sometimes that can feel really daunting and sometimes that can be extremely overwhelming. Then there’s the side that loves that and wants to lean in, and what that means for someone who loves performance and wants to put on a performance. I think about making the choice between when I want to perform and how much I love to perform, and then the times where I feel like I’m made to perform or forced to perform. I wanted that feeling to be present in the tour. There’s a lot of security cameras, physically, on my stage, and it makes me feel that daunting sense of always being watched, always being perceived. And that can be kind of scary and eerie in a way, and then you’re also kind of leaning into that and using it to your benefit. Creating a world with it.
JJ: Living in L.A., it’s so complex, because I think for so many of us, where this is our home, there is this sense of when we’re here, we are turning that performance off. But for somebody who works here, it’s different. How have you navigated that juxtaposition of performance on, performance off in this city?
T: I’ve been performing since I was 4 years old, 5 years old — being in my first movie when I was 5 years old; the first time I was in a dance recital I was 4. I just loved being onstage. I loved being in front of the camera. There’s such a huge part of my personality and who I am that really reveled in the performance of it all, of being in front of an audience, of commanding an audience, of creating my own narratives, of putting on a show. I’ve just always really gravitated toward that and find a lot of connection with who I am in that regard. But also, I do keep my cards close to my chest. I keep my circle very small. And I think that’s something I developed by living in L.A. When you grow up in the city — I say this all the time — you develop a different relationship with Hollywood and performance than people who move here and get overwhelmed with the “Hollywood” of it all. People are like, “Oh, people in L.A. are so fake, so this and that.” That hasn’t been my experience at all. There’s so much realness and real people and real experience here. For me, it was always really beneficial to be able to find that I could enter into those spaces and places, and then I could leave them. I could find my own community, my own space, my own friends. I can turn it on, and then I can turn it off. And both of those things can be very, very real and very true to who I am.
JJ: What are some things that you do when you are home, places you go to signal to yourself: “performance off”?
T: One of the things I love the most about L.A. is the space. It’s the sprawling aspect of it. It’s the fact that I can be outside. Being able to go on hikes, being able to see the sun, being able to have my own space within the city, being able to go see my family — I think that’s always been a key thing for me, being able to go home, see my parents, just sit on the couch. And then also, I like my alone time. Maybe it’s the Aquarius in me.
I can turn it on, and then I can turn it off. And both of those things can be very, very real and very true to who I am.
JJ: You had a show in Boston the day after the election. When there is something challenging going on, personally or universally, how do you navigate that with the audience?
T: I slept most of the day. I was in my bunk. I found the chance to isolate and process my own emotions. But understanding the responsibility that I have of being able to create a safe space for people, which I do think is so valuable — to create an escape. I wanted that to be the main focus of the performance, but at the same time, it was nearly impossible for me to leave my own emotions out of it. As I was performing, many of the lyrics felt really pertinent and really relevant to what I was experiencing at that moment. One was “Red Flags”: “Can’t keep ignoring the signs / And that’s the bottom line / Actions tell the truth every time / And I believe the lies.” I was thinking about my community, or the world at large, and how in that moment I felt a sense of betrayal. A song that really hit for me as well was “Save Room for Us.” That bittersweet feeling of knowing that this isn’t our moment right now but we will be able to rise again.
JJ: You performed at the Greek for your L.A. show. What was that like?
T: Being in my hometown, having all my family and friends there with me, and then also the way the audience was singing every single song. L.A. shows get a bad rap, because they’re a “tough crowd,” but I feel like they were so engaged. They were so aware of all the nuances of my art and my music, whether it be the old songs or the new songs. It felt like a very safe space and a very affirming space for me. That probably was my favorite show of this entire run so far.
JJ: Your music is so imbued with a West Coast sound. Whether that’s the collaborators you’ve chosen in the past, or there is just kind of a specific swagger and flow about your music that you can tell that this person came up on the West Coast.
T: I mean, I love West Coast music. And as much as it’s been trending or nontrending, I think it’s still important to continue those narratives, the essence of it, and putting it in all my work. I specifically wanted to bring more of that with “Quantum Baby.” I’ve experimented with other sounds, but I always find myself coming back to home, in that sense, and wanting to push the limits of what we expect when we think of West Coast music. I did that a lot with songs like “When I Get You Alone,” which has a West Coast cadence in terms of the BPM and the bounce and the flow but also incorporates other elements and brings it into new, unexpected territory. Growing up here and being very much a part of it and the sound, there’s a big camaraderie. I’ve been in the studio and seen Ty Dolla Sign and Mustard and YG since I was literally a teenager. We rolled in the same circles and are in the same studios, and that full circle moment of seeing us all now … It’s really amazing.
JJ: It didn’t surprise me at all that you named your album “Quantum Baby” and that it’s drawing from these heady ideas, because you’re an Aquarius. Every Aquarius friend I have is living on another plane of reality. Like, where are you guys? Come back down.
T: I’ve always been very fascinated by the things that are unexplained, whether it be the paranormal or things that we don’t have answers for. Asking these existential questions, as well as spirituality. I’ve had a lot of those themes as far back as “Reverie,” one of my earliest mixtapes, the concept [being], “What is reality? What is real? Could we be in a dream?” As an Aquarius, we’re very drawn to things that are other, that aren’t whatever the mainstream is. We like to be able to question authority. We like to make our own way.
JJ: What kind of internet rabbit holes have you been going down lately?
T: My algorithm is really reflective of all the things that I was interested in when I was younger and had left at some point, but are kind of circling back to being relevant in my life. A lot of it is very paranormal, like ghost stories or UFOs. Things that can’t be explained.
JJ: There’s so much contradiction within the music on “Quantum Baby” that mimics quantum theory. There’s this energy toggling between vulnerability and also a nastiness, an “I don’t give a f—” spirit.
T: It’s the nuance of being a human and being able to speak to both sides of who I am. When I first got into the music industry, I felt like there was a lot of discussion about me having to pick a side — whether it be thematically or genre, and I don’t really subscribe to either of those anymore.
JJ: This could be me projecting, but I’m curious, when you are reaching this level of virality and popularity with “Nasty,” is there a certain satisfaction that it has come on your own terms since you’ve become independent from your former record label? Is there a certain feeling of, “That’s right, I did this.”
T: I think so. And I also think that it’s very affirming in general as a creative because you’re constantly keeping this hope alive that at any moment, anything you put out could go viral. It’s not the basis of why I do what I do, but you always kind of hold on to hope that it could happen to you, and then when it does happen, it’s like, “Wow. So this really can happen with any song, any video, any photo, any Tweet.” It’s a cool moment. It’s an exciting moment. But I definitely don’t think it’s everything. That’s another benefit of having created so much art — knowing that going viral is the cherry on top of the experiences and the world that I’ve already created. Without that there, it’s a bit shallow, it’s a bit hollow, it doesn’t mean as much as it seems.
JJ: What was it like working on the “B2b” remix with Charli XCX?
T: Oh, my God. So fun. I mean, just being a part of the whole “brat” era was such an honor, because she just f— killed it. It was just such an authentic expression of who she is and where she’s at, and being a part of something that felt so authentic, aligned with my values and what I love about her and what I love about music and art. And then, being able to reflect on her experience of being in the music industry for a decade plus, the same way that I have, and being able to see her shine, it just makes sense. It’s inspiring.
Jay’s latest EP, called “Don’t Wait Until I Die,” takes a page from the deep, oily, enveloping scents that have become his signature.
JJ: I know that generally, you are averse to prescribing to one certain genre, but there’s a movement of women in pop right now, and I feel like you have a very specific place in that. How do you view your role in this scene, in this movement, in this time?
T: If I were to label myself, I’ve always considered myself a pop girl, because I feel like what makes pop music the best is being able to capture everyone’s individual identity and then make it something that is consumable. But I’m also excited to reclaim R&B. I was very averse to it for a really long time, because I felt like it put me in a box. And there still are a lot of stereotypes that go with being an R&B artist that I don’t identify with. But I think being able to think of R&B as a much more widespread genre and not as limited as it has been classically … I’m excited to see more genres be a little bit more welcoming to genre-blending and nuance and artists being able to create things that don’t feel right up the middle all the time.
JJ: What are you still learning about yourself?
T: I am a much better artist than I was in my 20s, because I feel like I am more empowered in my artistry, and I’m a lot more confident in who I am and what I want and the decisions I make. But it’s interesting, because I’ve learned that I’ve evolved so much, and then there’s a cyclical aspect to it all — as much as I’ve changed, I haven’t changed that much. There’s a lot of ways that I’m still the same person, still the same artist, and still thinking about the same things and inspired by the same things. That allows me to hold space for the person that I was as well as the person I’m becoming.
Makeup: Brittany Whitfield
Hair: Nina Potts
Photo assistant: Josh Jimenez
Photo editing: Eve Aubrey
