Tinashe Wants to Challenge the Pop Star Label

“The Popstar universe has been building in my mind for a while now,” Tinashe says.

The 33-year-old, one of pop’s most forward-thinking acts, is speaking about her latest album, Popstar, which dropped on Sept. 25 and features sixteen tracks. It’s the type of album that Tinashe, who’s been working in the entertainment industry since she was a child, could only make now.

“I’ve just reached a place in my life, personally and professionally, where I feel very self-assured and confident in my position,” she tells The Hollywood Reporter on a Zoom, pacing around what appears to be an outdoor patio as she excitedly talks about this next chapter. “Both in the industry and just I guess as an individual.”

Tinashe wanted Popstar to feel “real and raw and empowered.” The singer left the major label system in 2019, finding success in pursuing the music and creative she wants. It’s been a journey of growth and learning, she admits, but it’s been seven years, so growth is to be expected. Realizing she was able to do this on her own restored the confidence in creativity that she felt she had been losing.

Despite the album’s name, she wasn’t trying to box herself into a genre. She’s never wanted to limit herself to one of anything, and she feels her music has always been reflective of that. “The categorization was definitely probably the biggest hindrance to how I think I was perceived to the public and the world,” Tinashe says.

Letting go of genre might sound confusing when the album’s named Popstar, but to Tinashe, a pop star is so much more than a genre label. “It’s an energy, it’s an embodiment, it’s an ownership of a space that I want to take up in the world,” she says.

Tinashe wants to expand what people think of what it really means to be a pop star. From a technical genre perspective, she’s hoping that pop can continue to feel more expansive. “People, when they think of the genre of pop, they have a very watered down and narrow-minded point of view of what that sounds like and looks like,” she says. “I hope to challenge that.”

How does DJing fit into the equation for you?

There’s a couple ways that I feel like I’ve really connected with DJing. One is just dance music, dance culture, dancing. I really enjoy that. It’s really important, maybe now more than ever, for us to have community. To have connection and these points of connection — whether it be live shows, live spaces or places where people can listen to music together, I think is really important. I really want to continue to bring that energy to as many people as possible, whether it be from my live shows or smaller venues or after parties. It’s just fun.

The other element is just the exploration of the genre. I’ve dabbled and explored that genre a lot over the years and that led me to more collaborations in the space and working in the space. That just opens your mind to — again, in the spirit of blending these worlds and blending these genres — I feel like we need more women in this space. We need more Black women in the space. We need more conversation. We need to bring all of these different things that are inspiring to me together and not have them be so in their own lane.

To that point, do you see yourself as a DJ separate to how you see yourself as a pop star?

Yes, I do. In the same way, but different. When I think of myself as a pop star, it’s an additional skill, an additional tool to my tool belt, versus an entirely separate thing. But that’s what a pop star is to me. You can dance, you sing, you can DJ, you can create music, you can write music, you’re the muse. That’s what it’s all about.

Do you find it frustrating ever, for pop music in particular, there’s this idea that it’s something made in a factory and it’s just given to artists. In reality, all of the women like yourself that are in this space are actively involved in creating the music?

One hundred percent. That’s one of the things that I’m exploring visually in concept with this album, poking fun at the machine of it all or the perfection. We obviously know the cliches that are involved with being a pop star and being a part of that machine. But I also think people can see behind the curtain now a bit more, and that’s another layer to me of what this album means. By embodying what a pop star is, I can both lean into the spectacle and the show of it all, and I can also reject it and be like, “Fuck you, I am who I am. I might not fit this mold or expectation, but this is still what a pop star is because I said so.”

Does it feel nice to be able to take that back into your own hands to decide?

A million percent. That was really important for me, just where I am in my life, because when I wanted to write this new project, I really wanted to embody that energy. That was the North star of how the creative came together in my mind.

How do you feel about social media these days? It’s played an interesting role in your career.

I have a good relationship with social media right now. Sometimes that hasn’t always been the case over the years, but I think now I see it in the same way as this whole album concept. There’s an element of performance that is, I guess, a through line. It’s both known and used as a tool. I think about social media as the performance and about how I’m able to tell the story of this album through the performance of it via social media. That’s how I’ve changed my perspective on it. I find that I have a lot more fun doing that. Whereas, I felt [at times] in the past, there was just way more pressure to, who knows, post more or do whatever.

Would you call yourself online or more offline?

I’m definitely online.

So you’re seeing things?

Yeah, I’m online a lot. I think, in terms of my own self-perception of the internet or my place on the internet, I more so enjoy now being a part of conversation for the sake of conversation. And being a part of discourse for the sake of discourse. I think that’s important, whereas, obviously, it’s never fun to be the subject of negative discourse, but I think being a part of conversations is fun. It’s fine, it’s good.

How do you feel about the industry now versus when you were first getting started?

It’s changed a lot. I think, to be fair, I’m very optimistic about it at this point because I’ve seen how many iterations there are of it. And that leads me to believe that whatever’s happening now will not remain the same. That’s exciting in a way. Where music is going, and how people are going to continue to experiment and try new things, I think that’s really fun. I can’t predict it, and being part of that conversation is fun. Obviously, there’s bad things about it all, but there’s always bad things about it. It’s like, it’s the music industry, man. It’s the wild, wild west.