Popstar

“I have realised that I am the through line between all of my different interests and inspirations,” Tinashe tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I don’t worry about them feeling cohesive, because I know that what I’m going to bring to the table is always going to bring that thread of connectivity—whether it just be a concept, an idea, my melodies or background vocal choices.” On her eighth album, Popstar, Tinashe pulls together a wild assortment of threads, creating a vivid, singular statement that is as satisfying to listen to as it is to dissect. Since breaking through in the mid-2010s with the club-ready dreamscape “2 On”, Tinashe has forged her own path, resisting any attempts to stick her in a genre box. Popstar is a wild ride, with the heavy bass on the speedy “Too Easy” bumping up against the hyperactive glitch of “Melatonin”, and even a big ballad, the larger-than-life vocal showcase “I’d Rather Be Alone”. Popstar shows how Tinashe has become more confident in her artistry, and how that self-assuredness has inspired her to expand in a way that defies people’s expectations, with songs like the boastful “Flashbacks” and the high-velocity “Cloud 9” taking concepts of form and structure, then throwing them out the window. “When I think of the word ‘popstar’, I don’t think of it as something that’s exclusionary of other genres,” she says. “It’s all of these things combined. It’s all of them when they come together and are presented in this amazing package. This is an embodiment of that energy.”