In every corner of America—even the places that don’t teach art in schools, even the places where parts of bodies are policed, even the driest counties of the Southern states—there are dance studios. They’re nestled onto stripmalls, adjacent to Chinese buffets and forlorn laundromats; they’re atop steel skyscrapers; they’re hidden in the back of brownstones, reeking of feet and sweat.

Inside these absurd pockets, time is charted on a tight, circular loop, the music wrapping itself around gangly limbs and squeezing tightly. Unlike its laissez-faire, riotous use in its sister space, The Nightclub, music inside The Dance Studio is employed to regiment, to rope together disparate bodies and ligaments and appendages into a singular, coherent entity. Rarely does an entire album of music prove itself useful in both The Dance Studio and The Nightclub. Even more rarely does an artist come along who lives inside the two, imbuing every part of their work with the rhythm necessary to bring bodies close, and to tear them apart again.

Once in a blue moon, you get an artist like Tinashe. Mononymous and mainstream for over a decade, the Grammy-nominated singer, actress, artist, and dancer has been putting out genre-bending work that squirms its way across radio stations, inside private headphones, through tinny studio speakers, and inside bass-boosted bars with equal dexterity. The multilateral nature of her sound has fixed Tinashe as one of the most interesting (and hardworking) artists of the past few decades.

When I speak with Tinashe, she’s still enjoying the success of recent viral single “Nasty,” a catchy track with bouncy production and the coquettish song-of-the-summer-making question: “Is somebody gonna match my freak?” The track was the leading single off of Quantum Baby, the second installment of the singer’s three-album run released on August 16th. “I think the culture that we live in is so easily distracted,” she tells me of her decision to split the project into three. “I wanted to give myself the opportunity to really milk it.”

After years of hard work, Tinashe has the luxury of doing just that—milking it. She signed to RCA in 2012 at the age of 19, under whom she subsequently released her first Billboard hit single, “2 On” and album Aquarius. Years went by: the singer released Nightride in 2016, but Joyride, its audacious counterpart, was put on hold by the label for three years. In 2019, the singer cut ties with the RCA in favor of going independent—she now releases under Tinashe Music Inc. and producer Ricky Reed’s Nice Life Recording Company. Five years after departing from RCA, the singer has garnered another smash hit, and even better, she has done so with complete creative control. In a recent paparazzi video, someone asks her if she thinks the label regrets mishandling the relationship. She covers her mouth. “I know they’re gagging,” she giggles.

Tinashe has rightful faith in herself. She also, to a non- negligible degree, puts faith into the universe. She’s been open about her spirituality, weaving her angel number, 333, into many of the projects she’s released since going independent. Angel numbers (like 333) are often made to be incidental— recurrent glimpses of the number in someone’s day-to-day are meant to indicate that the person is on the correct divine path, but naming a project 333? That’s a deliberate effort. By putting the angel number out into the world, Tinashe’s ensured that she won’t just accidentally see the patterns. 333 will be a part of her every day—likely for the rest of her career.

“I think there’s not enough conversation about manifestation through action, and about creating energy as well as receiving it,” she says. “It’s just as important to be able to start conversations and create banter as it is to contribute to what the universe is.The universe is asking you to participate,” she pauses. “It’s asking you to give to it as well as receive it... you can’t be waiting for someone to do something for you and for it to fall out of the sky.”

Quantum Baby arrives, again, a ripe example of the singer’s intention-oriented ethic. Working alongside longtime producers Nosaj Thing, Ricky Reed, and Zack Sekoff, Tinashe imbues the newest record with tonal, temporal ambiguities: where BB/Ang3l, the first album of the saga was brighter and major chord focused, Quantum Baby is minor, moodier. “It’s late night,” she laughs.

In fact, when the album comes out, she has very specific directions for listeners: “You have to be focused. I want you to be sitting in your room, smoking a joint, drinking some green tea with a candle, looking out the window, vibing with some cool visuals on the TV. I just want a vibe. I’m really into a vibe and then we can grow from there.” What about a music video night with friends? I ask. “After you’ve felt the feels and heard the lyrics, then you can go off and party and experience it in the world,” she says. First, though? Take it all in. Listen to it in sequence. Feel the intention.

Despite a newer, granular sound, there’s been a through line across all of the singer’s projects, regardless of record label: catalysis. Bodily movement. Tinashe holds a unique place in the 2010s/2020s hip-hop/R&B canon for her oeuvre that can be readily translated into tight, explosive choreos. Her music videos and rhapsodic live performances are equally as impressive as the songs themselves, balancing a gymnastic vocal ability with acrobatic, fizzy routines that enliven the songs all that much more. “Nasty,” while catchy in it’s own auditory right, took off because of a silly dance edit—a nerdy looking white kid and a Black girl in a dance studio, whining to the sensuous drone: “I’ve been a nasty girrrll (nasty!)”

“[Dance always plays a part of the creative process.] I think that’s why I have so much of a focus on the beats, the tempos, the rhythms, and cadences,” Tinashe tells me. “It’s such a visceral part of the music—the experience of music. I always take that into consideration,” she emphasizes. It’s clear that she’s telling the truth—since her first single “2 On,” a number of her tracks that haven’t charted on Billboard have gone metaphorically platinum on corners of the dancer- centric internet. Frequent Tinashe choreographer and totem of the hip-hop choreo scene, Jojo Gomez, consistently garners millions of views on videos featuring Tinashe songs that don’t ride the Billboard wave—her “Party Favors” choreo has 20 million views and counting. Most of her Tinashe choreos, in fact, have millions of views—“Throw A Fit;” “Flame;” “Company,” to name a few—though none of the songs touched the US charts.

Tinashe exists at an axiom of fame that is rather unusual for someone in the age of social media: she’s staunchly entrenched in the pop cultural zeitgeist; she’s put out music with her idol, Britney Spears; she’s gotten a coy Nicki Minaj namedrop in 2018 track “FEFE” (Face is pretty like Tinashe), and she’s worked with some of the most prolific producers of the last two decades. Her work is lauded by music critics that can, at times, sound like fawning stans—writer Hanif Abdurraqib posted last week that he has “been on the front lines for Tinashe for so long,”—yet, before the “Nasty” virality, it felt to many that the singer was stuck in an exhaustive “underappreciated” cycle, ritually snubbed by institutional entities, kept just at bay from crossing into the warm hearth of explosive international acclaim. Tinashe is—has been— undoubtedly a star. The people love Tinashe, but it could be said the People in Power never seemed to know where to place her.

It was frustrating for longtime fans, of course, to see a demonstrably talented artist’s catalog consistently cowed by factors beyond popular control. It’s even frustrating now— after putting out a song that permanently altered the way Gen Z speaks (who hasn’t heard the word “nasty” thrown out in conversation and immediately hummed the tune, at this point?) Tinashe didn’t get nominated at this year’s VMA’s. Though fans are angry on her behalf, Tinashe herself knows that neither awards, nor any sort of external recognition, affect her art. “I would create regardless of if anyone was listening or if anyone was helping me,” she tells me. “Viral moments are amazing, and they really help and can create a lot of attention and a lot of eyes on you, but where I think the longevity is created is in creating that universe, creating a storyline, building a world that people can immerse themselves in.”

Create she does. And create and create and create. “I feel like I need to release music in order to free up space to create more. I have to put out art in order to free up psychic space,” Tinashe says. How do you know when to stop? I wonder. When you’re living in that universe—where is the exit point? Doesn’t that infinity make you uneasy?

“I think there’s a level of vulnerability that is always kind of scary,” she tells me. Tinashe is, above all, a pro, and one who is completely autonomous.“I feel a lot of safety in my art because you always have the fallback of ‘It’s just a song...’ There’s definitely some gray areas there in terms of what’s for the story and what’s real. That can be scary. I feel like I’ve reached a point where there’s a lot less fear in my creativity. I’m much more willing to see how it all plays out and to go with the flow because I have been so successful. So it’s just about enjoying those moments and not trying to live in fear.”

One of the most Tinashe of Tinashe songs is “Sacrifices,” off of 2016’s Nightride. Not simply because the song is excellent (it is), and not because it goes great with a body roll and a kick ball change (it does), but because in the last 10 seconds—just when you think the song has ended and the outro winds into a hazy oblivion—right when things have faded, she crawls back onto the mic, at the very front of the track, as if lips pressed directly on your ear, and whispers: “I will not be ignored.” It’s bone chilling and sensual. It’s threatening. It’s a promise. Since then, eight years after the song was released, Tinashe makes good on the promise, every day.

If you’re Tinashe, it’s not enough to create a new project. Create three. Create a summer. Create a new realm. Create a new genre. Create an entirely new section of the music industry. If you’re that good—if you’re Tinashe good—nothing is going to stop you. 

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Photographed by Abi Polinsky at Early Morning Riot

Styled by Oliver Vaughn

Written by  Annie Bush

Hair: Jacob Dillon at Opus Beauty

Makeup: Lilly Keys at A-Frame Agency

Flaunt Film: Isaac Dektor

Gaffer: Pablo Lopez

Key Grip: Eli López

BBE: Rishab Chandra

SLT: Dashiel Escrofani

Set: James Lear

Set Assistant: Jermaine Williams

Styling Assistants: Dakota Wallace & Jacob Ward

Production Assistant: Ella Brignoni

Location: Flat Factory Studio