This year, Tinashe notched her first Hot 100 entry in eight years with the sexy, propulsive song “Nasty,” which started climbing up the charts in June. Around the same time, a TikTok video of dancer Nate Di Winer went viral: In the clip, the nerdy-looking white boy winds his hips to the song’s chorus, inspiring memes that helped make Tinashe’s line “match my freak” part of the cultural lexicon.
For the 31-year-old star, “Nasty” represents hard-earned success after a rocky road that started in the major-label system. Now, after a few years as an independent artist, she says her work is just beginning. This fall, she’s on her second tour of the year, and around the holidays, she’s getting back into the studio to record the third installment of an album trilogy she’s been rolling out. “I feel like everything that I’ve been putting in the work for, for all these years, has led up to these moments,” she says. “I’ve been in the game 10 years now, so it’s like, I’m not new to this. I’m true to this.”
You were able to take back your career as an independent artist. What have been your roses and thorns from that experience?
The best thing that I got out of it was the sense of confidence in my decisions, and also having the freedom to drop whenever I want and put out whatever I want. That’s something that I didn’t have the opportunity to do before, when I was signed to a major. The hardest part about it is funding everything. So much is coming out of my pocket, but to me, it’s worth it. But there’s still a lot of places and spaces that are gatekept by the major-label system, and it is still really hard to break through in those ways.
A lot of your peers have rallied behind your success this year. Even Janet Jackson performed a bit of your “Nasty” with her “Nasty.”
That’s probably been one of the most validating parts of it for me. I always go back to Janet Jackson as being my ultimate reference, just because I feel like she embodies all of the things that I love. I feel like she was constantly genre-blending, and she was very ahead of her time in that sense. And she also is a great performer, entertainer, dancer. She’s still probably my top inspo, top mother.
Who else reached out?
It was all the girls: so many people commenting that they thought it was dope, like Meghan Trainor, Bebe Rexha, SZA, Kehlani, Tyla. One of the ones I freaked out over was Christina Aguilera. She’s one of my Big Three, with Janet and Britney Spears.
Azealia Banks posted an unofficial remix of “Nasty” on her Instagram. Have you heard the full thing?
I never heard [the full version]! I wanted her to put it out, so not sure what happened. That’d been cool.
It seems like another underlying story within music this year is not just the girls’ successes but the community of women in music uplifting one another.
I feel like that is kind of rare, in my experience over the years. There’s always a lot of competition around women, not necessarily because we created it ourselves, but because there’s so few seats at the table. So it’s really great to see how everyone’s supporting each other.
Quantum Baby and last year’s BB/Ang3l are part of a trilogy. Did you plan that before you released them, or is it an idea that developed in the studio?
It was an idea that I had before putting them out. I think people’s attention span is not the best. Sometimes you work on an album for two years and then people move on within two months, and that feels shitty. [The third part is] definitely still in the works. One of the benefits of having this three-part trilogy is being able to change it and adapt it in real time. A lot of times, you create an album and then you don’t get to release the songs for a year or two years. I don’t want to re-create “Nasty” several times, or anything like that. I’m just more inspired to go outside of my comfort zone.
You’ve made so many great party and club anthems. What would soundtrack your ideal night out?I’m not really like a huge partier. But I guess my perfect night … I just want to dance and have something that has good tempo and makes me want to move. That’s always top of my list. I really value my alone time. I like to be in the house with my cat. I like to play video games. I like to hang out with my family. I spend a lot of time at my parents’ house. I like to go outside and be around nature and go walking and work out and exercise. I like to cook. I like to paint. I like to make things. I’m not super-duper social.
What are you listening to in your alone time?
A lot of jazz music, a lot of classical music. I like to vibe out. I’ve been listening to Tems’ new album, Bryson Tiller’s album. I go through different waves where I’ll listen to one thing really heavy. Last year I was listening to a ton of Erykah Badu and Thundercat.
What do you still want to notch on your career belt?
One time my uncle asked me what my five-year plan was. I thought that was the craziest question I’d ever heard! I go year by year, month by month, week by week, day by day, and just kind of hope for the best. And that’s served me really well.
