Second Spin: TINASHE (with The Cut's Cat Zhang)

Hey everybody, it's DJ Louie here. Just dropping a quick little re-up episode. Tanache has a new record pop star dropping in a few days on September 25th. So we thought it'd be fun to re-up on our episode on Tanache with the cuts Kat Zang. I'm all the way back in 2024, just in case you wanted a little refresher on Tanache's career up to this point, while you get ready to listen to her new album. So hope you enjoy this episode, and we will be back tomorrow with another new one. (upbeat music) Welcome to Pop Pantheon, the podcast where we completely overanalyze all of your favorite pop stars, and then rank them in the official Pop Pantheon. This is your host, DJ Louie the Fourteenth, and as a special surprise, I actually have my producer, my right-hand man here, with me Russ, Russ Hi. Hi Louie, hello to the main feed. Everybody say hi to Russ on the main feed. So the reason I have Russ here as a surprise is 'cause last week we were so excited about announcing our new live show in LA, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and the millennial Diva Conundrum, which will be on September 30th at Dynasty typewriter, and Russ was so instrumental in putting this show together. We kind of conceptualized it as a duo. It's obviously like a fascination we share with this particular generation of pop divas, and so I just wanted to bring Russ on here quickly to talk about how we put this show together and just like why we're so, so excited about it. I mean, I just wanted to say that the journey with Katy's album has really brought up some interesting feelings within me personally because I know that we were young at the peak of their careers when they seemed so invincible, and they were gonna be superstars forever, and so it's actually kind of been a weirdly existential crisis on my part watching them navigate this part of their career where they're like, again, not quite legacy acts, but also not super zeitk, I see, and you and I were talking about that a lot, and that's kind of how the idea for this show came up essentially. - Yeah, obviously they're both incredibly important pop stars to both of us Lady Gaga in particular for me because of when I started going out to the gay clubs, those were all the songs that was during this imperial phase that we're sort of seeing Chapel go through at this moment, and Katy as a contrast to that was sort of like the biggest Capitol P pop star, the most Capitol B bubble gum, and those songs are so intrinsically linked to that moment, and yeah, they were just these titan figures, and I think both of us, like maybe there was a time for Katy to snatch a comeback, and that doesn't seem to be necessarily what is happening. - Yeah. - However, this is an interesting point in their careers because it's this point sort of where legends are made, if you will, you know, I look at Madonna Ray of Light Moriah carry the emancipation of Mimi, if either one of Katy Perry or Lady Gaga are able to have a moment where they transform their careers and the public's understanding of them, this could be a moment in which they transcend what they had previously been, and set something new in stone for their legacies. So an incredibly fascinating moment, I'm really excited to have this conversation coming to you, and yeah, if you haven't got your ticket for it, yeah, and you're somewhere in LA, or you're gonna be near LA, I think this is gonna be such a fun conversation. So yeah, slide on into grab the tickets. - Yeah, I'm really excited. And also, I think even watching their failures and successes tells us so much about the nature of what we do on this podcast. So I think this is gonna be a super fun conversation. Also, I love Michael Wood, LA Times, Pop Critic, and of course, one of our favorite guests, and of course, another favorite guest, Molly Mary O'Brien, who's been on numerous episodes, our Pink episode and our Demi episode, just really smart people who are gonna be on the show to help us dig into all the fun stuff about 1-4-3. I mean, it will be right after 1-4-3 comes out. So I just personally, I get really excited just to talk about the new music. Plus, we have heard rumors about this Bruno Mars Lady Gaga song. So, - Show it to me Rachel. - Lady Gaga music is showing to me. So, I'm just excited to be live on stage, talking to just two really fun, funny smart people. Plus, perhaps some additional people, TBA, to talk about these artists, their new music, all of the stuff about their career. I know how much our audience also cares about these girlies and wants to hear so much about them, and I can't wait to talk about them. So, yeah, get your tickets at pophantheonpod.com, or I will obviously include the link in the show notes of this episode. Also, obviously, the rest of the housekeeping rust. Thank you for being here, first of all. - It's my pleasure. - It's my quick drop-in. The rest of our housekeeping obviously, follow us on social media at pophantheonpod. I'm a DJ, L-O-U-A-E, X-A-V on Twitter and Instagram, our merch is at pophantheonpod.com, our Patreon, where we do weekly bonus episodes of this show, is at patreon.com/pophantheon. This week, we had another pophantheon-fave, Troy McKity, on the show, to talk about Paris Hilton's erstwhile debut album, Paris. That was a really fun conversation. I always love talking to Troy. You can also subscribe for the audio only directly in the Apple Podcast app. And of course, gorgeous gorgeous is this weekend, Saturday at Los Globos in Silver Lake. We're doing a Charlie XCX and Chapel Power Hour from 10.30 to 11.30, so tickets for that are available on the show notes of this episode. And we just announced our next New York date at the Sultan Room in Bushwick on September 13th. Tickets also available on the show notes of this episode. All right, and speaking of another super relevant pop, girly, this week, we are getting to track one of the most unexpected comebacks of 2024, Tanashe, who obviously emerged decade ago with her hit too on, and then had a very rocky and circuitous path to niche legend dumb, and then a weird crossover moment with nasty this year. So a really fascinating pop trajectory, both in terms of her own work and in terms of the way that she's carved out a new lane for herself as a middle-class pop star and niche legend, whatever you were calling them these days. And on top of today's main episode, Russ has a little piece of new set up. Russ, you keep finding a way into this intro. This is like a first of a very interesting new format here for intro, but Russ has some more news here. Russ, go off. I will be having a conversation about Quantum Baby, the seventh studio album by Tanashe. This upcoming week on Pup Pantheon, I'll access. So stay tuned for that as well. We decided to put this episode out right before this album dropped. And like always, we will be tackling brand new music on Pup Pantheon, I'll access. Get it wherever you get it. Yeah, get it where you get it. All right, so great conversation ahead. Here is Pup Pantheon, Tanashe. [MUSIC] It's been really fun watching Tanashe win. When she scored a viral hit this year with Nasty, it felt both pleasantly surprising and like hard one vindication after a decade of false starts and unrealized promise, at least in a commercial sense. Ten years ago, Tanashe exploded into public consciousness with the sultry banger too on and was immediately pegged as the next big thing. What followed was a perplexing, sputtering out years of label purgatory and a music business that seemed to have no idea what to do with her formidable talents. At the end of the 2010s, she was able to re-reinvent herself, if you will, into the bedroom artist she began as forging an independent career on the outskirts of Alt Pop R&B, a signature niche legend blazing a new trail through a cultier mini form of stardom that the internet provided. It was certainly nice to see Tanashe make a living doing pop, but it was by no means promise that she would ever have a big moment again, despite how much she might have deserved one. But as is discussed on this podcast often, we're currently in a pop-ego system where the rules increasingly don't apply and new ones are being written beneath our feet. The full circle of Nasty's totally unexpected rise up the charts 10 years after Tuan tells a fascinating story about this artist in particular, but also about how pop success is being remade and reimagined in the modern era in no small part thanks to Tanashe herself. [MUSIC PLAYING] Tanashe Kushingway was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1993. The eldest of three children born to a pair of college professors, Tanashe studied ballet, tap, and jazz as a child. She started doing voice work for television before she reached double digits, including episodes of the cartoon's Franklin and Avatar, The Last Airbender. And in 2007, she snagged a recurring arc on two and a half men. That same year, she joined a girl group founded by the pop singer vitamin C called The Stunners, which also featured current pop star Haley Kiyoko. That group released a debut single, The Disney Come Pussycat Dolls Banger Bubblegum, and signed a deal for an MTV show. But after going on tour with Justin Bieber, the group disbanded before producing a full-length album. After The Stunners called it quits, Tanashe bought a suite of recording equipment and set about teaching herself how to make and edit songs and music videos using Logic Pro, Pro Tools, and Final Cut. She began releasing covers, including one of Little Wayne's "How To Love" via her website, and appeared on the song "Artificial People" by OMF, a production team that had done remixes for Britney Spears, Usher, and Janet Jackson. In 2012, she released her debut mixtape The Ethereal In Case We Die, which was circulated via influential music blogs of the moment and started to build buzz for Tanashe. A few months later, Tanashe announced her deal with RCA Records, but it continued to self-release work, including a second mixtape 2012's "Revery" and a third 2013's "Black Water," which brought trendy collaborators into the process, including Dev Hines and Ryan Hemsworth, and garnered further acclaim and favorable comparisons to R&B luminaries like Alia and Janet Jackson. In January 2014, Tanashe released her official debut single, Two On, a slinky, propulsive, effortlessly cool ode to getting a little too drunk at the club, produced by a then-read-hot DJ mustard, and with a guest first from Rapper School by Q. The club ready track also came with a sleek music video that showcased Tanashe's virtuosic choreography and lands at a top, the US rhythmic chart and was a radio hit, ultimately earning a platinum certification and peaking at number 24 on the Hot 100. It remains to this day Tanashe's biggest solo hit. (upbeat music) With Two On, critics and fans alike saw big things for Tanashe, but it proved to be a fluke. Her follow-up single, The Sweet, Floty, Asap Rocky, duet pretend failed to capitalize on the buzz. Fizzling out 17 spots, shy of the Hot 100. In the fall of 2014, Tynashe released her major label debut Aquarius, a moody set of alternative R&B songs featuring production from hitmakers like Stargate, Cashmere, Cat, Bloodpop, and Mike Whale made it. Aquarius was well received by critics who lauded Tynashe's light touch, but emotional heft, stylistic adventurousness, and pop instincts, and it appeared on many year-end lists. But it was far from a commercial juggernaut, selling 18,000 copies in its first week and debuting at 17 on the Hot 100. Its final single, the two on sequel All Hands On Deck, never reached the Hot 100. In 2015, Tynashe headed out on tour, first opening for Nicki Minaj, and then for Katy Perry. That fall, she leaked a song from her sophomore album Joyride, the woozy glacial slammer party favors before RCA Greenlit the release of the first official single from the record, Player, featuring Chris Brown. Player failed as the launching pad RCA intended, missing the charts and was quickly abandoned. Meanwhile, Tynashe scored a hit in the UK as the vocalist on the soaring single along all my friends by the British production duo Snakeships, landing at number five on the UK charts. Back in the States, meanwhile, her career was on unsteady ground. She announced, then cancelled, a 2016 tour, and continued to release promotional singles, including the tricky steward and the dream-crafted electro-pop banger Super Love to limited commercial success. Though Joyride had officially been announced, the album was delayed amid creative differences between Tynashe and RCA. During this purgatory, Tynashe offered fans a mixtape "Night Ride". That project returned to her roots as a bedroom artist and expanded upon the celestial R&B of her early mixtapes. It received little promotion from RCA and landed at number 89 on the Billboard 200. Just days after Night Ride's launch, Tynashe was featured on a single from another artist's album, appearing as a feature on Britney Spears' slumber party remix. After a series of fall-start lead singles, Tynashe finally released Joyride in 2018 to very little fanfare. The album garnered fewer than 10,000 album sales in its first week and landed at number 58 on the Billboard 200. Following Joyride's dismal performance, Tynashe appeared all but over, but her early days as a mixtape artist who could make music alone in her house proved useful for a second win in her career. In February 2019, following a stint on dancing with the stars, Tynashe announced she'd split from RCA. She quickly signed a new management deal with Rock Nation and prepared the release of her first independent studio album. That fall, she dropped her debut single as an independent artist, the skeletal garage nodding die a little bit featuring the British rapper Miss Banks. The album that followed 2019's expansive and lush songs for you, received career-best critical notices for Tynashe, many of which noted that, free from the restraints of major label pressures, Tynashe's inventiveness and versatility within R&B dance and pop male use were able to shine as never before. Though the album was not a huge seller, landing at number 147 on the Billboard 200, it was a significant independent release, landing at 21 on the U.S. independent albums chart, and helped map a new path forward for Tynashe. It also allowed her to put her industriousness to use, including the release of a series of memorable music videos that again showcased her dazzling choreography and conceptual resourcefulness and an North American theater tour. In 2021, she released her second independent album, 333, which once again received seller reviews with songs from the project, landing on year end best of lists by NPR and Pittsburgh, and also included a series of busy music videos. It peaked at number 175 on the Billboard 200 and number 20 on the top R&B albums chart. In 2023, Tynashe made another detour into reality television, appearing on the Fox competition show Stars on Mars, which tasked sealist celebrities with living in a base camp designed to simulate life on the planet. Then in September 2023, she released her sixth album Baby Angel. Once again, the album received positive reviews, but limited commercial success, peaking at number 32 on the top album sales chart, but cementing Tynashe's strange place in the pop ecosystem far from the top of the charts, but with a highly dedicated core fanbase who would follow her every whim and scream from the rooftops about her criminal and perennial underratedness. This spring, Tynashe dropped nasty, the lead single from her forthcoming album Quantum Baby, which will be released tonight. That song surprised the world when it went viral on TikTok, thanks in large part to a dance video posted by the user @NateVibes. The reality helped Tynashe chart on the hot 100 for the first time in eight years when nasty peaked at number 61. Tynashe has five entries on the hot 100, including one top 40 hits. She has charted one number one on the U.S. rhythmic charts and one number one on the U.S. dance charts. She has three platinum singles. Tynashe has won one YouTube music award, one BMI R&B hip-hop award, one Hollywood beauty award, and one young artist award. Here with me to discuss the signature twist and turns of Tynashe's work and career is the Cut's Cat Zang. Okay, so I am here once again with Cat Zang, who is a culture writer for New York magazines The Cut. Cat, welcome back to the show. Happy to be here. Happy to have you back, loved talking Keshe with you a couple of years ago, and have been waiting for the opportunity to get to speak with you again. It feels like the exact right opportunity came along because Russ and I had been discussing picking up a Tynashe episode because obviously this has been an extremely surprising and exciting moment of resurgent, I don't know, mainstream purchase for Tynashe with her viral hit Nasty over the last few months. And it turns out that you have just profiled Tynashe for New York magazine. I'm curious what were some of your observations about how she's reacting to this surprising second act of mainstream relevance in her career? Like, what was your vibe on her in terms of like, what she surprised? Did she think, hey, I've known this was coming and nobody else understood it? Like, what was your impression of her reaction to this moment in her career? So for the profile, we went to paint and sip in like lower Manhattan, and the staff was being like a little cheeky with it, and they played Nasty during the paint and sip session, and then like two one later, even though I think Tynashe's publicist was very much trying to keep her as undercover as possible, although that's impossible because Tynashe is like extremely beautiful and dresses in a more like sporty, vixen style, and just as like, you know her when you see her. But she sort of like rolled her eyes in a good, humid way, and then like laughed a little. I think she's being very like good spirited and level-headed about it, so her sentiment is like, I'm really grateful that this happened, like this doesn't happen all the time, like I'm gonna save her it while I can, but I'm not expecting it. Later, I'm not trying to engineer my music to recreate another viral hit. She's played along with all of the memes and things she reacted to the one British kid who helped make Nasty go viral. She like did the dance on one of the like big American talk shows, so I think she's like dealing with it in a very, very healthy manner, which I guess reflects like how long she's been in the game, and thus like how composed she is and the feeling that she knows what she's doing. Yeah, I'm glad to hear that because my impression from afar reflects that, because what I thought was really interesting in Russ and I, my producer, were discussing this on a Patreon episode recently, but we were talking about the single she dropped after Nasty, which is getting no sleep, which is not the type of single you're gonna drop if you are directly trying to capitalize on the vibe of Nasty, like it's a markedly different song, it's a lot more ethereal, it's a lot less directly hooky, it doesn't seem like as engineered to be a TikTok viral hit, and at first I sort of was saying to Russ like, "Hmm, weird choice to sort of like have waited maybe 10 years to have this moment where everybody's paying attention to you again, and then choose this as the song that you're gonna drop next," and Russ kind of pushed back at me in a way that really helped me understand this more clearly, which was like, "I don't think Tinashe is going to pivot her career back after fighting so hard to attain this artistic freedom that she's achieved over her independent career since 2018-2019, and just attempt to kind of like, like she's smarter than that is what he was essentially saying, like she understands, and I think this is a topic that comes up so much on our show, that your goal shouldn't necessarily be to be Taylor Swift, because it's so hard to be that, it's so rare for artists to achieve that kind of big tent mainstream monocultural thing, and while Tinashe in some ways seemed primed for that in the two-on era, and a lot of people pegged a lot of hopes on her in that way, I think the difference between 2014 and 2024 is like now I think smart artists realize that having a dedicated small cult audience is in some ways a better operational guy is for pop-start 'em than trying to be Britney Spears or whatever, so I think that what Russ was saying is true, and I think Tinashe does seem like a very wise operator in this way, and someone that kind of gets this, and I think it seems clear that while she's happy to have the viral moment, and like it is some form of indication for 10 years of people saying that she's underrated, and I'm sure her herself feeling like she's underrated and speaking about that in her music even, I get the impression that at the end of the day she is happy and comfortable in this kind of cult pop-start 'em mode, so I'm interested to hear you say that. Yeah, I mean one thing she said to me was like my main objective is to challenge myself, and then I challenge my fan in turn, and that is really reflected in the choices she's making in personnel and production. She said in a recent interview, and then that goes to me that like she always likes to try to work with a really complicated beat like where she encounters it and she's like I have no idea what the fuck to do with that, and then see if she can try to bring it to a level that's more accessible versus having a more like stock, you know, hype trap beat, and then being like I know what to do with this, and so you see her working with people recently like machine drum, more like IDM stuff, that's not like the most intuitive person you're gonna pick if you want like a top 100 hit, and what she was also saying is like I just want to be able to make the art that I want to make to fund the things that I want to fund, and like I'm good. That being said, if she does achieve main street success like in the last name moment, she is really well poised for it because she's not like a young nobody who when viral and tiktok and is suddenly having to go on cold bear. Like, she doesn't say stupid stuff online. She knows how to interview, she knows how to dance. Like, she's got it. So it's kind of like, if it'll come to her, she's ready, but she's not gonna push it. - She is the industry professional. I mean, she is also a performer in kind of the old school Glitz and Glam style performer. I mean, she is, as you mentioned, an impeccable dancer. She's really worked on her craft. Like, she's ready to meet whatever moment comes to her, obviously. But I think what's also interesting about her in contrast to that. And of course, I think this nasty moment feels like it's happening in tandem with Charlie XCX also having a mainstream moment. Like, these things feel very related to me. Like, here you have another artist who spent 10 years off in this cultist sort of pop stardom world and all the sudden is having like this massive mainstream look. They're both artists, and I think even Tanashe maybe even more so than Charlie XCX who also arise from sort of like bedroom pop stardom. Like, at the same time as Tanashe obviously presents as a classic failings of dancers, like Glitz and Glamers, sort of performance oriented pop star who is like a true professional, like a consummate professional. She's also someone that rose up through an ecosystem where she made her first few mix tapes in her bedroom and also even when she was poised for more mainstream success after 2-1, continued to have like tandem careers where like on one hand she was releasing mainstream singles or a temp set mainstream singles with Chris Brown or whatever we'll talk about all of that. At the same time, dropping like mix tapes she was just like making in her house by herself and she's always shown that she's able to do that and in her independent era, she's proven that she can be basically like an entire music industry unto herself. She has her own label. She talked recently about how she like plans her own tours and loses money on them and all of this kind of stuff. So she's like a real well-suited creature in some ways both to maybe like a mainstream look because she has that consummate professionalism but also she's very well-suited to kind of the DIY. I was gonna say the DIY pop stardom. She's very well-suited to that and she knows how to work that very well. - Yeah, and I think what's also interesting is that the big pop girls of the moment, let's leave Taylor aside, are all like newer girls. You know, we're thinking like Sabrina Carpenter we're thinking Chapel Rowne like there's kind of a parallel here with Chapel having struggled in the industry for a long time with a major label before then like completely reworking her persona and her music to be something that's more authentic to her. Like she has Dan as her producer so she's not totally DIY but there's a lot of DIY elements in how she's constructed her tour and the way that she pursues her vision. So I wonder if there's also just like mass fatigue going on in terms of, you know, Taylor and Beyonce Mania. Like the veteran pop stars are not that exciting. Obviously Katy Perry has flocked with woman's world. Do Alita, you know, like didn't really make a splash. Casey not so much either. So I guess this is a moment in which people are just looking for like fresh faces and fresh perspectives. - And the scrappiness registers as authentic to people. I think this is true of Chapel and I think it's true of Charlie. I think it's true of Tynashe. Like people want to feel like what they're getting is not some sort of like boardroom product. Like they want to feel like there is something ground up and organic about it. And I think Tynashe fits that at the same time which really interesting is that Tynashe feels apart from a chapel or even a Charlie in the sense that like her music is very persona driven. It's incredibly steely. You don't really get to know her super well even though she does sing quite vulnerably in certain moments and like can have emotional power when she sings. I still think her music is not diuristic in the Taylor Swift way. And I think that that's really interesting because I think that's been an interesting thrust. Also in the way that her career has dovetailed with how pop values have changed over the last 10 years because she also arose in 2014, which I feel like is a crux moment where there was sort of a transition away from these sort of performative pop star values and towards Lorde and Del Rey and like these kind of intimate more revelatory sad girl artists. And meanwhile you have Tynashe out here like shake an ass and making songs about being like a kind of sex robot dance champion whatever. And I think that that's really interesting too because I think in some ways what Tynashe does is well suited to what pop fans want. And in other ways it feels like somewhat out of step with the vibe of the last 10 years in terms of intimate diuristic pop stardom that has emerged in that period as well. Yeah, you've been relative to other sort of like baddie figures like a Megan the Stallion. We still know so much less about Tynashe. Like Megan's loving her like anime. She's like going to Japan to like talking about the trauma after like getting shot and all of these things. We don't even know that much gossip about Tynashe's life in terms of who she's dating or how she's feeling. And I think we'll get into it later but I do think in some ways that is a bit of a liability if her desire is to become a more mainstream artist. Yeah, agree. I think it's interesting and I think maybe that again speaks to the fact that that isn't really what she wants 'cause she's never really been able to twist herself into a pretzel effectively to like feed the needs of the broader pop machine ultimately. Like she is even in her moments where she was trying her hardest to get the sort of mainstream major label albums off the ground. There wasn't a ton of compromises it felt like that she was willing to make it even when she did try to make them they were so ill-fitting like on a flame or instance or whatever. That it just didn't work. So I think that in some ways that goes back to your earlier point which is that I think she understands her value proposition and she understands that her value proposition might be to feed a small but fervent group of fans that appreciate that value proposition and I think she feels comfortable in that way which I personally believe is the way forward for like a lot of pop stars. I think more pop stars could do well to embrace that working class version of pop stardom and stop trying to be some version of monocultural sensation that like just feels out of grasp for a lot of people and in some ways I think Tanashe is and will serve maybe even more so when we look back 10, 20 years from now as a blueprint for a lot of stars that come after her in terms of working pop stardom in a less major tent for quadrant way. And I think that Tanashe really is gonna be like a blueprint for that in a lot of ways. - Do you think Tanashe fans are like the least toxic fan base? They're extremely enthusiastic. And I think even when they're disappointed, it's not that nasty. It's more just like I think some of them were upset about the pitchfork review of 3-3 'cause they expected like an 8-point or higher or something. But I remember all of them just being like kind of sad about it and not sort of like euphugly bitch. - Well, many pop stans are in that van. I've gotten my fear of death threats for very benign reviews. - Yes, well I think that if the maximum goes that the fans reflect the energy of the person at the top, it would add up that Tanashe fans would be non-toxic. 'Cause Tanashe herself has a very sort of non-toxic celebrity profile and a very unengaged celebrity profile. So it makes sense that they're not being whipped into a frenzy like the way that the barbs are or whatever by the person at the top, you know? - Something that's interesting and maybe you can tell, she told me that like she doesn't consider anyone in the industry, her close friend. She's like I consider them peers. But my true close friends are people who like I've been childhood friends with or like she spends a lot of time with her family. So I don't think she feels the need to like bother herself with jostling and infighting or just like showing out for paparazzi photos to be like girl gang or whatever. - Yeah, maybe she's enlightened in a way that, you know, we don't see often in the space of like the hunger for ultra-capitalistic bobs sort of. Maybe the nox she's taken, she actually took into account and like actually use them as a way to grow as a person and understand that nothing is promised in this industry and you kind of like make it what you make it. And her career's a testament to that in many ways. And it's a testament to perseverance because this viral moment happening, whether it's the onset of a more broad look at her or just as a fleeting moment is definitely like a testament to the fact that she stayed in it, she kept at it, she did her own thing, she built her own thing and the moment came and it happened and then we'll see what happens from here. But let's go back right now and talk a little bit about this story as it unfurled. In thinking about your profile and in preparation for this, I'm just curious like light background on her, where she from, where she grow up and what are the elements of her early life as you were researching her that felt kind of interesting or instructive to understanding her as an artist and a performer, et cetera. So she was born in Kentucky to an acting professor father and a physical therapist's mother, she's biracial and then the family moved to Illinois and then to LA when she was aide to support her career. From the very, very early age, she entered the entertainment industry. So she was a child actress, she was in the puller express, she did avatars, she was in two and a half men. Hello. - Hi, I'm Charlie Harper and this is Jake. We live next storm, right, Jake? - I'm Jake. - Hi, I'm Celeste. - Truly when I found this out, I was like mind blown. She started dancing since she was four ballet, tap and jazz and so obviously that's where that skill comes from. There's truly, I think, no artistic endeavor that Tinashe is bad at. Like, she was probably the best one in the paint and sip class, which was just like, of course she is and she has very a student energy both as a person and not in the annoying way and as a performer. She basically knew since day one that she wanted to perform. It was asking her whether it's difficult to be a child star because we're hearing all these accounts from like, Jennette McCurdy and Nick Lodian kids, that they had really traumatic experiences. But I think she said that she had a great time, I think in part because her parents are so supportive and they're so close and I don't know, maybe she didn't touch those more insidious domains of the industry, like doing more voice acting work, or like sitcom-y things. And so she went to high school maybe for like a brief period of time, but people were kind of like mean to her and so then she really went full steam into her like performance life. - Maybe having like a solid home life is part of why she's so grounded in this moment and everything because you don't often hear that story with pop stars and especially with pop stars that emerge from child star. I'm like usually you're dealing with a damn me or a- or a Britney, or whatever, and there's this huge fraught tense relationship with the parents. And maybe the fact that Tinashe feels grounded and protected by her parents is part of the reason why she's handling all of this pretty well at the end of the day and seems like a relatively grounded person. I'm curious if you got a sense from her or just from your own understanding of Tinashe, like who she was looking up to, particularly like in a musical sense, like when she was growing up, like who her idols were. And if those people informed how she was envisioning her ambition as a musician, like did you get a sense of that from her? Yeah, I think some of her influences. And you can clearly tell Janet Jackson very obviously. And then she performed it in that like tribute. So clearly Janet Jackson is kind of adopting her as like a descendant. And also she used nasty during nasty girl when I saw her at Barclay. Yeah, I think Tinashe was actually in the room when that happened. Yeah, Britney Spears, that's more of the pop mode. And again, we got the dancing thing as well. They end up collaborating. Shot day. And then she has her more like indie influences. So someone that came up and our interview and has come up for her a number of times is James Blake. We talked about Imagine Heap, which is kind of the idol for any female musician who really values creative autonomy. And I didn't realize that actually she sampled through through in one of her songs. Oh wow. The long tail of Imagine Heap on like pop stars writ large. Like if you bring Ariana that's interesting the way that so many people look up to Imagine Heap or have felt that she's intrinsic somehow to their artistry in ways that like maybe you wouldn't expect. I mean, I wouldn't necessarily peg Imagine Heap as like someone that like is an obvious influence on Tinashe or even on Ariana Grande necessarily. But like people look up to Imagine Heap like in a big way. Yeah, she samples let go in one for me, which is on one of her mixed tapes. I think actually in the new record you can hear more of the Imagine Heap influence kind of in a similar way that you can hear the Imagine Heap influence on Shy girl's nymph and the two of them were supposed to tour together. But I think for her what she said she learned from James Blake and from Imagine Heap and people like that is just how to value space in a song as opposed to trying to cram it with so many different sounds and squeaks. And then the way that she mixes these more intricate rave beats with like sweet melodies is very like heapy and also a lot of artists are doing it these days, whether it's like Koleila or Pink Pantherists or Myriad of other people. Yeah, I think it's also really interesting because Tinashe is somebody that obviously takes the craft of like songwriting and like pop songwriting very seriously. And like in another universe maybe she's a very successful hop top liner. And I think you can see that. I mean, she obviously has written songs for other artists in the past. But like she's someone that clearly studies the craft of both songwriting, studio production and then obviously performance. So I think a thread that maybe ties Janet, Brittany, Imagine Heap, James Blake together is sort of like picturing a young Tinashe as a bit of like a sponge in terms of just this sort of scientific approach to what she does. Like she clearly takes what she does seriously with like almost an academic rigor. It seems like to me you described her as an A+ student. I think you can really see the way in which Tinashe takes her crafts very very seriously. And like that's a very intrinsic part of her. I mean, obviously you watch her dance and you know that this is somebody that takes what she does super, super seriously. I mean, there's so much precision. She is one of the best I think in that regard that we have working today. And she's just like an incredibly sturdy songwriter. And I think it makes sense that she would study everything from the big broad pop songwriting of Janet and of Brittany Song and then also be looking at the ways that that maybe connects or can be informed by more esoteric people like James Blake or Imogen Heap. So I love hearing about that kind of broad array. So how does she then pivot her child, start him acting like into being a musician? Like was music always the number one priority? Was she also interested in acting or was acting always a means to an end to like get to the music career? I don't know during her like early teens, which ones she valued more, but at some point maybe in her late teens she's like, "I'm really gonna focus on music." And so she ends up joining this girl group called The Stunners, which I know we were both shocked by because who was in that girl group, but Haley Kiyoko. This was the craziest fact of this deep dive. I had no idea about this. I had no idea and then I looked it up on Twitter and every single tweet is just like, "I had no idea that they were in a girl group." It's so random. And what's funny is that when I was listening to some of their music, some of their songs sound like the songs on Lemonade Mouth, which is like the Disney Channel movie that Haley Kiyoko was in with I think Bridget Menler, which like they formed a band. And they made a track for the I Carly Sound Track. This tells you a lot about like the demographic that they were catering to. They opened for the Justin Bieber World Tour. I watched this interview they did with Tiger Beat Magazine, TBT, and it was about school dance season. And it was all about like tips for surviving school dance season. And Haley Kiyoko goes, "Grab a cookie and punch. It's all about the food." Oh my god, that is hilarious. I was obsessed deep diving on this. It's like if Danity Kane or the pussycat dolls were making like Disney radio songs or something like that. So 2008, 2009 live Disney Machine, Disney Radio vibes. They also reminded me of Bella Thorne and Zendaya on Take It Off, which is like another Disney Channel show that came out around that time. I'm like even the outfits, you know, where it's like Disney was obsessed with like making all their stars like layer increases. Yes, yes, yes, so many layers, so many layers. I remember when we were prepping for our demi episode. And I was like these outfits like shirts under shirts under shirts under like 20,000 necklaces or like a dress over a pants and then like the amount of clothes that they're all wearing. It's like we were in a very interesting teen fashion moment in 2008, 2009. You know, but what was so interesting, honestly like broadly speaking about just seeing Tanashi like in that mode of super manufactured kid pop stardom is like I think it's kind of rare that you have an artist that emerges from that scene from like child stardom from like something that processed and then sort of turn out to be like a truly kind of a G figure in pop music like somebody that ends up being somebody that is sort of experimental that ultimately turned out to be somebody that has more sharp edges to them and is more of like someone that's slightly outside of the box. Like usually when you see somebody that comes up through that system, they end up being Britney Spears or they end up being demi lavato or they end up being Selena Gomez or they end up being Justin Bieber, whoever it is, these are artists that are like ultimately as mainstream as they come throughout their careers. So I did think it was interesting because I think it says thing about Tanashi that she has like one foot in child stardom as you mentioned kind of like a student consummate professional and then another foot where she is more in tandem with fringier artists like Kaleila you mentioned earlier or like a ton of other artists that we could bring up. That's an interesting like sort of dichotomy that exists within her and also is interesting that she goes from that to sort of being like a mixtape soundcloud artist, you know, from the belly of the beast to kind of operating completely outside of it in some ways. Who's her closest contemporary analog in this way? Like is it Olivia? Someone who is like, you know, Disney star but into like alternative rock music? No, because Olivia's version of alternative rock music is still like so, you know, like turbocharged. Do you know what I mean? Like I mean, I love Olivia, but there's nothing that Olivia is doing that feels truly edgy to me. Like it's using the signifiers of edge, but in a way that feels incredibly sanctioned. Like I think that there's like so much about Tanache, even in her like major label early moment, even in the Tuan era, she has a bit of like an edge to her. I mean, we'll talk about Tuan in a second, but it's a song about getting like beyond blackout fucked up, you know, in the club. That's like her debut breakout single. Like you just don't usually see that kind of thing coming from an artist that is like a part of the machine in the way that this group makes her seem like or two and a half men makes her seem like, you know what I mean? Like usually even if they become edgier in that way, like they have to move really slowly into that space. Like you know, they have to transition and we all have talked ad nausea about how hard it is for like Disney stars to actually convey to us that they have sex and drink and like what a big deal that is in everybody's careers. So I just find that really interesting about Tanache, like that she kind of has this duality within her of like child stardom and also kind of like bedroom, fringier artist, edgier artist. Like I think it's a weird combo. And I think we're gonna talk about now. Like she essentially is the genesis for the disbanding mint of that group as far as I understand it. Like she basically is over it at a certain point and decides to leave. Is that how you understand it? And then starts her mixtape career basically or her YouTube career? Yeah, and maybe there is something with like competing priorities, competing schedules, whatever big explanation they want to give. And the group expands. Her manager is Mike Nuzaro who is someone she worked with at Universal Republic and so she also buys a bunch of equipment, goes on YouTube a lot, teaches herself pro tools, logic pro, and locks herself in her bedroom and is like I'm gonna make some mixtapes. And even Even now, her recording studio is basically just like in her bedroom and her home. And so she just has producers come over to her place. - Yeah, I feel like that's become an incredibly important part of Tinashe's ethos. Again, that kind of like DIY I do it myself. I can do everything myself. I'm like a one woman record label and production studio and music video production company and whatever. And that really starts in this moment. And it's really interesting because this is a moment generally speaking where the internet and technology is providing new pathways forward for artists to do this kind of thing and for them to have success doing this kind of thing because of social media. So you have like these two pronged things where technology has evolved to the point where people can make professional sounding music by themselves on their computers in their houses. That wasn't available to somebody in 2002, 2003, 2004. So Tinashe has a lot of impressions and she's really smart about learning that stuff. I mean, I think it really is something that would serve any artist while at this point to be able to do all of this stuff on your own and to have the vision to do all of this stuff on your own. But essentially as you were mentioning, she starts posting stuff on YouTube. Her first solo music video is a cover of Little Wayans, How To Love, which is so cute. I was going to mention this. I love it. It's so good. [MUSIC PLAYING] How would you describe her voice? I mean, she doesn't have a powerful voice, but she has a very kind of like not surprisingly. I feel like well-practiced, well-honed. Like, she's a good singer. She's very like emotionally available. I find as a singer. Like, what do you think about her as a singer? I would agree with your assessment. I think she does have a lot of range, but I don't think that she necessarily shows it all the time. And now, with the more recent albums, she's almost more in this like wrapping mode. But there are a couple songs where she really does like a falsetto or something like that. She's not like a powerhouse R&B vocalist. There are a couple of times where she kind of does like a light Beyonce thing or like a light Rianna thing, but she's not like a Jasmine Sullivan. No. She has one kind of soloist song. Like, she's not in that train. I think like her voice is way above functional, but it's not necessarily the main thing that people are listening to her for. Yeah, well, it reminds me a lot of Brittany and Janet in this way too. I think because they make sense to me as vocal idols for her people with thin voices, maybe distinctive voices, but thin voices that sort of use them as a per. Use them as like a way to ooze. Like, there's a way that she utilizes. I think a lot that she learns from the way that Janet and Brittany used their voices. They remind me of each other in that way. And I also think that how to love thing is instructive for many reasons. One of which is that that's a song that's sort of happening at the crux of R&B and hip-hop, sort of fusing together in the early 2010s with Drake and with Little Wayne. Obviously, like, now we live in a world where the borders between those two things feel like entirely collapsed in many ways, but I think it's interesting because I think Tinashe is somebody that also functions at the intersection of those two worlds. You mentioned, she wraps a lot. Even when she's singing, there's a real rhythmic cadence to a lot of what she does. So I think like choosing how to love which feels like somewhat of a seminal song in that way. I mean, Little Wayne is probably one of those important figures in the sort of melding of singing and rapping. In the late 2000s, songs like Lollipop, et cetera, were obviously incredibly important in terms of melting those walls down. So I think it's really interesting that that was the song that she sort of chose to debut on her YouTube is an impression to look forward at some of what Tinashe does well in that space. - Yeah, it was funny to revisit an era when every R&B song seemed to have to have a rapper feature, like the rapper Bumston, like two thirds of the way. And even thinking about Justin Bieber and Ludacris, which might have been like earlier or something like that. - No, I think that was like literally the same year. That was either 2010 or 2011, right, I think. - When I was 13, I had my first love. - Oh my god. Okay, so that basically leads to Tinashe's early independent releases which are primarily characterized by these three mix tapes that she releases independently online. I'm talking about in case we die in 2012, Revery also in 2012 and Blackwater in 2013 that kind of feel like of a piece with each other and sort of garnered her like increasing recognition amongst both fans and eventually like from the industry. I'm just curious like broadly speaking on these three mix tapes, like what's happening here? What kind of music does she start to make? And like how is this in conversation with other music that's happening in this moment? And also in tandem with that, how people are releasing music. 'Cause I think there's like a conversation that connects this to like the SoundCloud rap era for instance. So how do you think about all of this music both sort of aesthetically and how it's positioned in the broader space of how people are releasing music in this time? So around this time, we have like the rise of the weekend and his like druggy, hedonistic tales. ♪ So tell me you love me only for tonight ♪ We have Drake coming up. We have this alternative R&B movement happening. I think of like an artist like Banks. And so a lot of her music is like dark, brudy, atmospheric, murky, tales of like love and like lust, but with this more sinister, like dramatic element to it. ♪ I'm still wishing that I'd stop ♪ ♪ Oh, I'ma feel me wherever you are ♪ ♪ And I still live a minute days ♪ ♪ I'ma feel for having me ♪ Now a lot of her music is lighter in touch. So it's striking to listen to these mix tapes and feel how different they were. What was also funny is, I think, Revery was inspired by the 2012 presidential election. It's always funny. I feel like most of Tenashi's music is like pretty thematically similar, but where she really tries to insert the concept in is in the interludes, which I, for the record, am like mostly anti-interlude. And I think she has some pretty silly ones. I've come to terms with the fact that nothing is what it seems. But I think her quote is, "I noticed that as the presidential election "in the United States draws ever nearer, "people became tremendously caught up "in the Hollywood drama of it all." So it's like, we're in this sort of gossip Revery, which is very funny. 'Cause I think if she hadn't said that, then I don't think we would know. But there are some lyrics and her songs would be like, "What is the nature of truth?" And like, it's very philosophical. (laughs) ♪ Oh yeah ♪ ♪ It was never right ♪ ♪ Everything you've got to know ♪ ♪ And it's a funny twist ♪ I think Chance the Rapper remixes one of the songs off of Revery, maybe it's ecstasy. So she's like in a good place. Oh, I think this is also like around the era of 50 Shades of Grey. So one of the comments that comes up a lot is like, this could be on the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack, which is true. Vulnerable with Travis Scott, like that's definitely a 50 Shades S song. I love that song. That to me is the song that sort of stands out from the early Tanache music. It's like the weekend who was featured on that soundtrack. Like, I thought so much about the weekend on this. You know, I also thought a little bit about Frank Ocean who also emerges in this time period. This idea of like Ulth R&B, which I feel like is something that we should bring into the conversation around Tanache. Like, there's this movement that I feel like these mix tapes are a part of. And again, it speaks to the collapsing boundaries between hip hop and R&B in this period where R&B artists are pulling a page out of artists like Drake and Lil Wayne and Mix Tape rappers by sort of saying like, hey, even though we're not technically rappers, we don't have to only release music in the traditional single and album format. Like we can release these bodies of works online by ourselves. So she's part of a movement that I think Frank Ocean is in some ways like the most famous example of because nostalgia ultra probably is the ultimate Ulth R&B mix tape release that then led to superstardom, which happens I think in 2012. So it's happening right around the same time. And there's this sort of Ulth R&B aesthetic. I mean, Janay Eiko is also emerging during this time. (upbeat music) There's a whole group of artists that are of course like drawing equally, I feel like on the sort of like, Georgie, narcoticized music of the weekend as they are on Janet and even Brittany on some level. Like one of the early Tenoche songs Samples Britney Spears is blur. This song can't say no. (upbeat music) She's making very direct connections between herself and those artists and this music feels almost like moody, spacey, a little bit ethereal and hard to connect to. I find sometimes like it feels kind of murky, even early Sysa music works in this way for me too. Like Sysa's another artist that I think is emerging during this time and also releasing a lot of mix tapes. Like Janay Eiko Tenoche says, FKA twigs is another person that's also in this space. They're all working in like some similar type of milieu to each other. Does that clock for you? It's like trap beats slow, murky, narcoticized, really ethereal vocals. Kind of like their personas disappear into the music in some ways. It's not like persona forward in the way that you normally associate with pop stars. - Yeah, yeah, they're like in a cloud of weed smoke and-- - Yes. - And it sucks. - Exactly, exactly. So all of this ends up peeking when Blackwater, the third one in 2013, gets like a lot of critical attention. I have vulnerable the song in particular. you know, it's obviously Tnash is in a place where Travis Scott is collaborating with her, so I think that kind of points to a level of credibility and a level of buzz around her. And that leads her all to her deal with RCA. So this begins a storied up and down journey between Tnash and her record label, obviously. And it all kind of begins with the single "To On", which comes out in 2014. And this is the song that I think still is the song that most people associate with Tnash. I'd say this song is markedly different from her mixed tape material in a lot of ways. How would you describe "To On" and how do you situate "To On" in this broader story of Tnash. It's very rowdy, turn up, anthem. It's like snap and R&B. There are like finger snaps in there. They're like "Hey" in the background as if you're in the party and you're like being "To On". DJ Mustard produces, it reminds me of like, "Turn Down for What". Don't tell him by Jeremiah, which I think came out the same year. Cassie's you and me. Major Cassie vibes. Major Cassie vibes. Yeah. And as you were talking about, you know, with rapper feature in the R&B song, we've got "School Boy Queue" on this song. You can clearly see her label intervention in the fact that almost all of her singles feature a major rapper as the guest. And then once she exits her label era, she leaves RCA. She starts in some ways to become her own rapper. She starts to adopt the hip-hop cadence more. Yes. I love "To On". I mean, it's really fun song. It's cool. And it is more straightforwardly just like we are having fun as opposed to slightly more tormented aura of the mixed tapes. Tormented is a word that we should have brought up. Like, that's the vibe of that R&B female space at that moment. I think there's this kind of emotional tormented that feels instructive to that. Yeah, heaven and hell, I'm flirting with the devil. But, you know, we to still present in the setting of the song is getting "To On" is basically, you know, like, I'm really drunk and I'm really high and we're like, "Turn As Fun". I'm surprised that "To On" never caught on as a phrase. But it seems to have that intention, you know. Like, now we have so many songs where it's like they become, like, memes and phenomenons. So, like, "Brat Summer", "Honestly Summer", "Yolo". This one didn't succeed, but it's kind of in that vein. Absolutely. I completely concur with that assessment. And it actually exists in that way in terms of just celebrating over and vibing with the EDM hits that are preceding it. You know, we're actually, like, right in 2014 in this moment where the EDM wave is kind of crashing against the shore. Like, we're kind of done with it at that point. But we talked about this in our Kesha episode. Like, so many Kesha songs are about this topic, too. Like, just getting beyond obliterated fucked up and they take place in the club. So, "To On", I feel like, fits into that tradition in that way. But it sounds markedly different from those EDM songs. As you mentioned, it's mid tempo, it's spare. But, unlike her mixed tape tracks, it's incredibly propulsive. I mean, this is like a song that moves really fast and is a dance record, which is so funny. Because, in spite of everything we're saying about Tanasha being an impeccable dancer from a young age, her early music doesn't really lend itself to, like, you know, beat up Britney Spears style choreography. And "To On" really does, you know? So, in a way, it plays to her strengths in that way. It reminds me in some ways of the recent trajectory of Tate McRae, who I think actually does, oh, quite a bit, to Tanasha. And who made, like, all this kind of moody, Billie Eilish-ass music, and then suddenly made a dance song. And everyone was like, yes, girl, that's what we want you to do. Because you can fucking dance. It really reminds me of that in that way. I was gonna bring her up. I was gonna say Tate McRae wishes she were too much. Literally 100 million percent. Tate McRae is, like, the surface-level version of Tanasha. She's, like, a cipher of Tanasha. Right. Yeah, and, as you mentioned, it comes out in a swirl of DJ Mustard hits all of which sound somewhat similar to each other. You mentioned "Don't Tell 'Em", you know, "Rack City" is another one that comes to mind on this song. These kind of, like, snappy, west coast skeletal versions of G-Funk or whatever, like that are of the DJ Mustard thing. But this song, "Bangs", you know what else it really reminds me of is "Sierra's Goodies". Sierra feels very important in terms of, like, Tanasha as well. Again, thin voice, incredible dancer, propulsive music, like, I think that two on easily could have been a "Sierra" song. But I think what makes Tanasha kind of unique on this song is she is genuinely cool, seeming. Like, there's a vibe about her. Like, she's the opposite of Kesha in that way. Where, like, Kesha was all about being sloppy and messy and, like, garish. And there's something about Tanasha, like, singing about being so incredibly fucked up, but, like, never losing her cool, that I think is very signature to her. Her persona on this record still, like, kind of exudes a certain sense of cool factor and, like, never breaking a sweat in some ways, that I think is very integral to how we see Tanasha moving forward. And that's why I want to compare her to "Do Elite" by which I think we'll get into. But, you know, both of them have the stance of, like, I am in control. I know what I'm doing, like, I am the master of the club. If you wrong me, it's something that I know that you're doing. And in some ways, I've kind of bought it into, like, I'm intentionally fucking with this toxic person for the thrill. But it's not, like, you pulled one on me. Right, there's no real vulnerability exposure. There's nothing that they're not in control of. I mean, "Do Elite" but says on her new record, "Control" is my religion. You know, I think it has some connective tissue there in that sense. And it's a way that, like, it's funny to have a song about being so fucked up to the point of oblivion and still sensing that she is in complete control of the whole thing that I think feels integral to a lot of Tanasha music. And also, the last thing I'll say about it is, there's a lot of Tanasha music. I think it's changed, maybe, in her independent releases. But a lot of early Tanasha music from the mixtapes through this period, there's a real darkness to it. I mean, Tuan is kind of a dark song. And it's slinky and enticing in its darkness. But it is beckoning you into something sinister at the same time. Like, there's this feeling of cascading sort of, like, chime noises that happen in it that feel almost like you can picture the sort of glitz and glamour of the world she's existing in. But you can also feel that there's something sort of dark about the whole thing at the same time. And so, I think that that's a very important element of a lot of Tanasha's music, is there is a beckoning of sinisterness that runs through them all, even in, like, a snappy pop hit like this one. Anyway, I adore this song. I still love this song. This song comes on. I still want to hear it. I still play it all the time. It's a fantastic song. And it is a pretty big hit. I think we remember it maybe as a bigger hit than it actually was. I was surprised to see that it only peaked at number 24 on the hot 100. It also famously got a pretty bad Drake remix, as I remember. Which, you know, I think maybe just speaks to its cultural ubiquity. It has a great video. Tanasha has also proven herself to be like an incredible music video artist. In many ways, obviously. And this music video features her really, really incredible tight, precise choreography and something that we will see a lot moving forward. So great song. It leads to the release of her debut album, which is 2014's Aquarius. Now, what's happening on the rest of this record that's either in conversation with Tuan or her mix tapes or new? Like, how do you find the music on the rest of Aquarius? I think Tuan is kind of a red herring. Aquarius has a bit more of the moody vibe of the mix tapes. There's even like this lightly paranormal element to it in the interludes. Like, what is reality? What is truth? If truth is subjective, that is in the what is there to lose in our lose? What is reality? What is truth if truth is subjective? Very Janet to have interludes like that. I mean, she's clearly ripping a page out of Janet's book. She says the Velvet Rope is her favorite Janet album. And there's maybe seven interludes on the Velvet Rope. So that is a direct connection to her idol there. Yeah, we've got the song "Bat" with Dev Hines, which sounds like a weekend song. It sounds like the hills. We have some, like, electric pop in there. Some, like, sex jams. But yeah, I think we're back in this darker space. And then there's another, it's like, two on two is all hands on deck, which takes us back into the slightly more up tempo mode. Right, produce by Stargate. It's like a great two on rip, so I'm not mad at it being a two on rip. One thing I didn't totally clock about this until I was listening to it this time is it has kind of this spooky kind of, like, submarine sonar synth theme, which is, I guess, attaching it back to the idea of all hands being on deck. Like, it's, like, a nautically themed club sex record. I love all hands on deck. But yes, I agree with you. Although I find the music on here different than the mixtapes in the sense that it's more polished. Her persona is more forward. Like, I feel more about who she is. I don't find it as murky. I find it more enchanting and ethereal in a way. And I think there's a lot of different tonalities. like you have darker songs like that you have Cold Sweat, which is obviously like a super sexy, almost Drake-esque moody is a word that kept writing down a lot like moody song. That's actually secretly about her ambition to be a pop star, which is interesting. She sort of talks about in that song how power comes with money and all the sudden people are flocking to her because she's having success and sort of how she deals with that and the Cold Sweat is both like a reference to sexual anticipation in some ways as it is to the feeling you get like right before you go on stage and it's about like being a performer and sort of the anxiety of that, which is really interesting to me. And then you get like kind of these more sun shiny even if they're low tempo kind of R&B collaborations. Like you have the song How Many Times with Future, which again directly interpolates Janet Jackson's Funny How Time flies when you're having fun and is kind of like featherweight and has like a lightness to it that I really appreciate. I love that song. You have pretend with ASAP Rocky, which is a love song basically like a song about a theme in a lot of Tnashay's music about like being in a toxic relationship but knowing you're in a toxic relationship and deciding that you're just gonna pretend everything's fine so that you can keep it going because I guess the sex is so good. I thought that's a big Tnashay theme. And the other thing that pretend brought up for me is the connection again between sort of this like alt hip hop R&B world. Like Tnashay has one foot in like radio pop on this album and then one foot in like ASAP mob or even maybe odd future is another one. Like this slightly left of center indie rap R&B space that I think is really important to who she is. But yeah there's a song called Doug Cry that almost gives me like Christina Milion Y2K like TRL vibes to it. So I really really like this album. I have to say this is I think maybe still my favorite Tnashay album or if not number one it's number two. I find it very consistent. I find the mood of it very intoxicating. I love the song far side of the moon that's like a deep cut fave of mine. The thing that I think I like about it and that makes it click for me more than the mixtapes is although you have the moody aetherialness of the mixtape vibe. I feel like when she does express vulnerability or lightness it really works for me. I think that she's able to actually express emotions even if she's not telling us that much about herself. There's a feeling in which she can express emotional availability that makes her register for me more than like a jenay ICO does for instance as like an obvious counterpart to her in this period. So that's my galaxy brain on Aquarius. Oh yeah yeah and then something that you brought up you know far side of the moon there's like a celestial theme happening to cosmic love all tying back to her being an Aquarius. I think that's the strongest that she goes in terms of like an overarching concept though like she's not someone with super clearly defined eras with like a whole different aesthetic and lyrical themes which I think can make it hard sometimes to navigate her discography or to like really buy into her in part because her songs are so consistent in some way thematically and in quality there's like then not as much of a reason to be like specifically excited about something I understand I think that makes a lot of sense I think their mood pieces in a way the word actually that I wanted to bring up earlier is melancholy I think like the most emotional color you get from her in a dark sense is melancholy but it comes across in this broad wave of feeling as opposed to a specific incisive sharp lyric or something like that like their mood pieces but I think you're totally right about that like there's not really this sort of eras idea with her like everything sounds great and like really well made and incredibly moody but it's not necessarily like you get a sense of evolution or revelation throughout the discography I think that's a really fair point the last thing I want to praise about Aquarius is the all hands on deck video and the shipping containers is so fierce do you remember that video where they're stacking the shipping containers she's really good at music videos she makes a good case for music videos which not a lot of artists do these days although with the music videos it's a similar thing where like every music video is her doing some really tight choreography in like a sexy outfit that's sort of like ob-on-basic so it's like a tattered shirt over like a bra let or something like that she's got girls there maybe is like light concepts like what the shipping container but there's not really a sense of storyline ever in the music videos and so the general vibe is like she's an amazing dancer and she's super hot and she's got more girls so if I were like Tenashi's manager I would say that maybe like varying up like more of like a funny skit type of music video what you kind of did with I think X or like I don't know if something really can't be or something really narrative I think that could be good for her I agree but I will say in response to that is there are so few pop stars that can do this thing anymore like that can just do the choreo video and like eat eat eat especially in some of the core the other big pop stars in 2014 right it's like Taylor Swift she can't do this Ariana Grande she can't do this so few like these artists can't do this most artists can't do the Janet Brittany failings choreo eat down mother diva god yes thing so in a way she's like filling a space that other artists are not which maybe makes her out of step with the values of the moment you know what I mean this makes me wonder like how she then fits in with TikTok because it's not like her choreography is being like emulated so much on TikTok right well it's not emulatable because it's too virtuosic right so does that work to her disadvantage like we're getting this sort of dance culture so everyone is seeing dancing but her dance prowess isn't necessarily working for her in that way instead she's adopting the grassroots dance moves or I'm thinking about something like apple like everyone is doing the apple dance but like I can do the apple dance and I can't do any of tonight's yeah I think it speaks to what we were getting at earlier which is like I think the problem with tenasha maybe in this moment is that people aren't really gravitating towards these sort of virtuosic untouchable version of pop stars like they want pop stars that feel relatable to them and that feel like they can be their bffs and like she's not really that type she's operating in a whole other mode and I think that probably speaks to the fact that Aquarius is not a big smash it's not the breakthrough smash that I think maybe many thought it might be once Tuan caught on in the way that it did it basically peaks at number 17 it only sells 70,000 copies in the US so it ends up on a lot of like critical best stubs like I feel like it's an album that's very much embraced by critics because it is a great album but I think it's something that doesn't really deliver on the pop star promise that like many people saw for her or maybe she even saw for herself in this moment with Tuan and it leads to a very interesting flop era which is what I'll call it so basically following Aquarius Tuan ashe very quickly announces the follow up which is titled joyride I think she announces it like nearly the next year 2015 but we won't see that record for another three years 2018 and a lot happens in between she floats singles like player feature in Chris Brown and super love she puts out a EP mixtape called Amethyst which features one of my favorite Tuan ashe songs which is wrong she kind of like feels lost in the woods so I want to talk about this era sort of more broadly speaking we can talk about the Lucy singles as they feel relevant I like some of them more than others and then of course there's this night ride mixtape slash album that she puts out in the midst of this which is hard to say whether it's an official studio album or not but it feels like to me something that she skirts around her label to put out and fits more in with kind of the mixtape Tuan ashe vibe and then of course finally in 2018 she releases joyride on RCA her second and last album on RCA so what do you make of this period of Tuan ashe's music and what are the differences you see between kind of what are obviously the more like major label sanctioned move she makes in this time and what are the things that she's clearly doing as more like indie bedroom Tuan ashe yeah it seems really like she's being thwarted by her label she has to leak the song party favors on sound cloud to get it out she released this night ride basically to kind of like tied over fans who are like what's going on there's a pretty stark difference between joy ride and night ride joyride is like very edm me in a way that I find kind of funny like there's like kind of like chopped EDM vocal and faded love the song me so bad it's so funny it's like it's cresco but like worse it's really trop housey too like trendy trop house yeah and also it's just you want some me so bad is a very embarrassing thing yeah some kind of reminds me of like rianna's work and rianna's free I guess this is the moment where like Justin Bieber is working with scrillex and rianna is working with Calvin Harris and so the album is a reflection of that and then what we were talking about poor were like the label is very clearly pushing her to work with these big name male artists like chris brown I don't think anyone really liked the chris brown song like no like a boilerplate song and also at this point he is like very cancelled like maybe not to like record label execs or whatever But like, you know, this is like many, many years after the whole Rihanna thing and so she said that like they basically forced her to do it Like she doesn't need him, you know she has like some Yeez's E production which actually I like a little bit. Yeah on the title track Which was actually originally sold to Rihanna for Anti and then she didn't buy it back from her You know I was mentioning Tanashi as like the songwriter, the top liners There were certain moments on Joyride in particular which is obviously an album in which she's like trying to make major label fodder That you can really hear other artists singing the song like Joyride. I could definitely hear Rihanna singing Like there was a couple notes I made in here where I was like these songs could have gone to other Maybe sometimes even lesser artists than her as like album tracks and they sound kind of generic in that way, you know Yeah, so I think Joyride is not very well-received by her fans I think they're pretty disappointed that it does sound so generic I don't think the songs are bad necessarily, but it is true that it like Erases a lot of her personality and there's like some obvious two-on remakes like no drama the single obviously like sounds like It's trying to recapture the energy of two-on not quite as effectively (singing) Fated love also the one with future has that vibe to me too Yeah, and then I think people like night write a lot better I feel like pretty fine about it and I guess another thing to note is just in this era She's working with a lot of like hip-hop producers as well So you have Boywanda, Mike Wille made it, DJ Mustard, the features are like future, ASAP Rocky, Offset And so when we get to the more independent staff, so lose a lot of these figures and go maybe towards more like electronic producers I find both of these albums really interesting because like night ride to me which comes out actually two years before Joyride And again as Kat was hinting at like seems like she kind of snuck around her label to release it because they were keeping her in purgatory I guess trying to find another two-on night ride reflects a little bit of like the instincts of her mix tape that I like less like where her avant-garde instincts can lead her into making music that can feel a little bit sleepy to me Like on the one hand you have Joyride where it's like everything feels like a little too tightly stitched A little too cynical, not quite like what you're looking for in Tannache record And then this kind of reflects another sort of like part of her intuition that I sometimes struggle with in some parts Which is again like kind of this over-nar-cardicized oozing sexual avarice but that doesn't coalesce into something propulsive it feels kind of like spacey and like hip-hop hippie vibes I kept thinking about Asap mob in that way like tasteful but sleepy And like some of my favorites from this time period are the ones that have like a little bit of brightness to them Like why Lucy that I really love from this time period is the song Super Love which came out in 2016 and is unlike any other Tannache song to that point It's like an uptempo snappy 90s dance like ghost town DJs my boo A little bit inage love you down kind of vibes written by the dream Super bass Yes super bass It's really light and joyous and celebratory And doesn't lose the essence of her lightness It doesn't sound like she's trying to be I don't know Katy Perry or something like that But it's like Tannache doing pop in a way that I actually think like kind of makes sense for her And feels like joyous and light And a lot of her music in this time period even on Night Ride which I know people prefer Feels kind of bogged down to me in that sleepy all R&B format Super Love is like very Sierra Like there's a light snappiness to it that I really appreciate And the other song that I love that's also by the dream is company Which is like this scuzzy, purring, big booming bass strums Sex song that kind of reminds me a little bit of like genuines pony And has a great video that again I know Kat it's like not reinventing the wheel of Tannache videos But it's got this incredible choreo shot in one take in like this single setting That's just very very virtuosic and fun to watch in that way So those are the two songs that really stand out to me from this time period And they're very different than any mode of Tannache we've seen before And that like she sort of sticks to on both of the records to me Yeah, yeah I would agree and Super Love was the one that ended up going viral on TikTok It was like a mashup of that and I want to say unlock it by Charlie XCX Oh that's great. Yeah that makes sense to me But the truth of the matter is that none of these are majorly successful And like Tannache at this point is when she kind of gets like paid Does like a canonical flop pop star where like they're throwing a million things at the wall None of it's really connecting you know There are people in that time period that stand her and go hard for her But it's not entirely clear like where she fits in And clearly as you mentioned she's at odds with her record label So in the wake of this flopping we should mention joyride peaks at number 58 On the hot 100 just to give everybody a sense of like where Tannache is commercial prowess is at this moment in the interim in 2018 She releases a couple of Lucy's with the producer hitmaker that they're supposed to be Part of an album called nausea that is supposedly supposed to be her next RCA record Hitmaker crazy little aside is the rapper young burg who made the song sexy Can I with Ray J? Do you remember sexy can I? So he like rebranded as this producer hitmaker who she Collaborates with a lot. I think that it's just like the funniest little fact anyway And they release a couple of songs one. I really like which is called throw a fit Which is actually her second most streamed song on Spotify. It's so good. Yeah, it's so good Kind of like a bratty snappy attitude that like I think Tannache's music thrives in like not sleepy snappy attitude Right? Yes. Yes. Okay. We didn't talk about two crazy songs. All my friends Yes, the snake hip song that she does in 2015. Yeah, which I have a soft spot for Her most streamed song by the way like that is the most popular Tannache song of all time It comes after a lesia car is here and so it's like the anti-social pop moment Yeah, okay. I like it. I know that I will be in that minority And then there's the song slumber party with Brittany which I listen to for the first time. Oh right How did we forget that? They did like a reggae pop song. That's crazy Kat, where were you in 2016 that you were not aware of slumber party with Brittany? I don't know like listening to Justin Bieber's Purpose album Honestly a pretty good late period Brittany's thing Yeah, you're not gonna agree with me on that. No, no That was very polite to you. I mean, that's interesting too because it speaks to like okay Well, Tannache is at once like flopping left and right and you know at the same time like an establishment a list pop diva is like trying to get her on her Oh, like she's in this weird middle zone in this time period where it's not really working and yet She still feels somewhat anointed to success in some way Yeah, it's weird and even like having future on our album and having offset on her out like it's like There's still this feeling of like no, but Tannache should be happening. This should be happening and it's not That's what I kind of remember from this So she releases these Lucy songs. She also appears on Dancing with the Stars She famously appears in rent life. I don't know if you remember that the disaster that was rent live. Oh my god Crazy so I think the most important point in this era is that she officially parts ways with RCA in February 2019 what do you know about that split like was that amicable like do we know anything about kind of the nature of how that came apart? The on the record statement was that it was an amicable split and like it's the one thing that she gets asked about a lot so if you read reviews of her work It like always starts with the RCA stuff which I think is kind of unfortunate because then she isn't able to craft her own independent narrative and now RCA has like a really bad rap between this and the Normani delay is where the reputation is now that they don't know how to handle R&B artists Although I saw some thread on Twitter. Were you the one who responded to that about like countering the idea that RCA Doesn't know how to handle R&B artists? No, it wasn't me, but I saw this too. Yeah, I saw people being like yeah But then they like listed like 20 R&B artists who have been like super successful on ours. Yeah, perhaps or like Then RCA is actually like championing R&B artists where other labels like more even sign them basically. Yeah, I don't know I wonder what the deal was But it just seemed like there are a lot of problems behind the scene and eventually she just decides like I'm gonna go Independent which is risky because you don't have the promotional budget and the budget for music video that you would under a label. - What is the state of RMB like in 2016? 17, 2018, 2019, like, is there a lane of this sort of flop era for Tinashe? They just has to do with the fact that like there isn't really a space at the top of the pop charts for like an R&B-coated pop star of this ilk? Like, how do you think about that? I mean, the weekend is obviously huge and like he could be technically coded as R&B, but I feel like he's not even really like, are there R&B artists that are having massive success in the late 2010s in your mind? When did control come out? 2017, so yeah, I guess that would be a good example. Yeah, yeah. But Sizza is a little bit unique in that way. I mean, it's not like there's 20 Sizza's happening in 2017. I do think there is a bit of a struggle for like where Tinashe fits in because she's also not quite Sizza, because Sizza also works well in the sort of like, diaristic, super intimate pop start a mode of, you know, Lord or whoever. Like, there's connective tissue there where what Tinashe does is like somewhat aesthetically connected to Sizza, but who Tinashe is as an artist is kind of different than Sizza in a way. So I searched up top hits of 2017 on Spotify and we've got 24k magic Bruno Mars. That's not quite it. Young Domen Broke by Collie. Wow, that's the first time I've thought about that song in seven years. I know, I think he just disappeared. Funny, then there's like Thunder by Imagine Dragon. It's not R&B, but also long I haven't thought of in a while. Wow. Yeah, it seems like a big year for hip-hop slide. By Kevin Harris featuring Frank Ocean and Migos comes out, that's funny. Yeah, and then we have the lords and I think still a kind of like electronic moment. Yeah, so there's not really a ton of Tinashe-esque things happening in this moment. So in a way that that kind of lines up with like just what she's offering isn't what is being purchased in pop music at this time. I mean, I guess Ariana Grande is maybe the most obvious example of it. Pop star who is doing some version of R&B, like you could hear Tinashe on a song like Love Me Harder, for instance, or something like that, right? Yeah, but I think at that point in Ariana's career, it's very much like personal narrative driven, right? Yes, yes, and you were sort of talking about the way that Tinashe really lacks that, generally speaking, throughout her career. Alright, so in 2019, she releases her first independent record songs for you. What do you make of this? I mean, you've been hinting at the ways that it's different, but obviously this record comes out in an entirely new context. It is not sanctioned by a major record label. So in some ways, we can think of this as a pure expression of what Tinashe's vision is. If Night Ride and Joy-Wide were kind of like dual reflections of her struggle to figure out what to do in the context of a major label deal, does this record reconcile that in meaningful ways? And if it is a pure expression of what Tinashe does well, what does it do well in your mind? It feels like the fog that we were talking about clears. It feels a lot lighter, it's a lot more nimble. It feels like she's stepping away more from this sort of like generic kind of like trappy R&B vocals moment. The guests that she's picking, some of them are smaller, like Emma's banks. She's doing a little bit more of the rapping herself, like on Hobbscotch, which has this like West Coast bounce thing. I really like that song. I really like the song Stormy Weather, which kind of has this whistle beat and StereoGum said something funny about it, which I don't fully agree with, but is telling. They said it makes me wonder what would happen if Tom York and burial guys were using R&B. She does have like getting into these sort of like experimental tendencies more. She has just like some fun lighter hits like save room for us. I like really like songs for you and 3-3-3, like I think they're very listenable albums. I like them because they feel like in a way it's like Nightride and Joyride felt like so all over the place. And these are also like very diverse sounding and yet they sound like of a piece in this weird way. And I think it speaks to the level of control she's exerting over it. Like she has really good taste. She has a real breath of things that she can do. Like she really runs the gamut on this. Like you were talking about sort of like the experimentalism of a Stormy Weather. And then right next to that is save room for us, which is basically like a straight forward, four on the four banger with a great pop. And she can do each of those things equally well. Or she can as you mentioned you brought up die a little bit. This kind of like stripped for parts garage track. And then you've also got cash race and link up which are kind of like trappy bangers with attitude that fit a little bit into the sort of too on mode of tenasha. She's able to like execute all of these different styles with a plum. You know how you can sometimes listen to pop albums and they try so many things and your head is spinning and you're like what is all of this have to do with each other? I feel like this album feels more. Reena Salayana. I'm just gonna say it. Okay well I said it. Anyway so there's like a mood board tumbler diversity to this that actually works really well and like serves her because she is really adept at so many different styles. Perfect Crime. Another great song on this record that's this ethereal electro roller disco kind of song. And I just feel like this is a great showcase for tenasha. It has some of the spirit I think of the mixtapes but like so much more polished as you mentioned like so much lighter so much ear candy. It's really well done. It's super well produced especially for a record that is made independently without major label support. You wouldn't be able to tell by listening to it like it sounds great. Like it's really beautifully made. And it speaks to her abilities in the studio as a vocal producer. I really really really like songs for you. But again I think what's interesting is that and you were sort of building on this throughout the conversation like you never really learned that much about so much. I was thinking like who is she on these songs really like she's a cool girl. She's definitely like good at doing swagger. She does do heartbreak like she has a lot of songs that are about being willfully ignorant about toxic relationships. Like save room for us is like a song about a guy that's clearly like probably moved on for the relationship and she sort of like begging him to stay involved in it. Even a song like the story of us to me it has this like longing, wishful feeling to it and she's proclaiming this man to be the prince of her heart but you still get the sense that this guy is not giving her the same time of day that she's giving him. So there are these ways in which she like lets us in on certain aspects of her. Perfect crime another song about like a knife in her chest in a relationship she talks about. So I'm just interested like do you feel any sense of like revelation in any way or do you sort of feel that thing you were talking about earlier where Tannache's persona is largely consistent and her themes are almost always the same throughout all of these songs. The revelation was just in the buoyancy of the music but I do think her just kind of stayed pretty consistent. I think 3-3-3 is similar you know she's trying on a lot of different things. Right this is her next independently released solo album in 2021. Yeah and then I think of a song like bouncing which I love and like the both memorable line on that song is I've been sending dirty picks hope they make them to the cloud. I was thinking about that and I was like I actually don't know if Tannache I feel like Tannache is not an artist that has super memorable individual lines and that is like one where I'm like that's a little bit more specific than what we'd get from some of her other songs like maybe even if she just had lightly more creativity in the like language like that would help elevate her just a little bit. I love the cheekiness of that and then this sort of like reference to the cloud makes it slightly more contemporary just these sort of like light things but yeah some great songs on that record. She's with Jeremiah you know like so going all the way back to like the two on don't tell him unity. I really like the song The Chase on that record which feels very different for her. It's so crystalline and it almost feels to me like it has like this like pop rock angst and feeling and betrayal. So the moment that I hit play on these two albums I was kind of like uh like yeah yeah I mean I think there's a sense in which like maybe that's not the type of music that she makes like I think what she's doing is intentional like I think if she wanted to be more diuristic or say some more direct things to us she would I just wonder if like that's something that she's just not that interested in doing like it's that weird dichotomy between being a child star somebody that knows how to create a grade perfection like with what she does like maybe she sees herself more as kind of like a mood piece type of artist than she does as somebody that has memorable lyrical punches or something like that one of my favorite songs on this record is Undo back to my heart which sounds to me a lot like Taylor Swift's style yeah that's what the song that does it's kind of like 80s Miami vise synth pop sleaze to it that I really love And again, on this record, there's this real dichotomy that doesn't feel divorced from each other between like her pop instincts, like she'll make a song like Undo or she'll make a Bouncing or she'll make it X, like these really pop hook-driven songs. Right next to songs that feel like really strange, like this song Shy Guy that's like this kind of a "theorial drum and bass" song, or even a song like Pasadena, which is almost like, "hey y'ass" sort of vibes to it. That is like kind of a biography song about like moving to Pasadena with her family in 2002 and like starting her entertainment career, or like the Waltz of Last Call, like there's these strange tracks that have like multiple parts to them throughout the record, like smashed up next to like these really like tightly stitched pop songs. And like that seems to be a sort of duality that she plays with on these independent records to great effect, I think. Yeah. Like the minute you start to get lost in the haze, she's like back at you with like a snappy hook-y song. To go back to the comment about her not being a diaristic artist, I don't think she need to do that. What I am curious about is like whether she might succeed at taking a page out of Sabrina Carpenter handbook, which like Sabrina Carpenter's, you know, really know that much about her either besides that she's like horny, like that's persona, but she always has a quirky element in her music that makes it really stick, whether that's like that's that me espresso or the putting on the persona, the delivery of mother fucker, or like yeah, the line like Harpbreak is one thing, but ego's another. So I think that's what I mean by the bouncing comment is if we have just like slightly more specific lines, with a little wrinkle in them, I think that's something that I would love to see from Tinashe. I see that. Yeah, and maybe that's a part of the reason these songs haven't caught on virally like nasty has because like nasty does have that kind of dead eyed refrain that gets repeated over and over again. It's funny because I mean we can talk briefly about 2023's Baby Angel, which is kind of like the last thing that she released before nasty. It's somewhere between an EP and an album. I love the song Needs on that, which was the single. It's kind of like a snappy, attitudey, sex, R&B, slinky, you know, it's a classic Tinashe song. And in many ways, there's so many songs that we've talked about today that like equally to me could have been the song that caught on. Like I don't see any reason why nasty, for instance, caught on but like bouncing didn't or ex didn't or Needs didn't, you know what I mean? But maybe the answer is that that sort of like dead eyed repetition of I've been a nasty girl is in some ways what you're talking about with like the Sabrina Carpenter handbook. Like it has this meme ability to it. The way she says it, the way it sort of repeats that way is the thing that makes it available to be TikTok memeed in a sense. Yeah, I was surprised when nasty went viral and I attributed it mostly to just like people go crazy for like a quirked up white boy, but she didn't say like there is nothing that like gets people more excited than like a white boy who reveals that he has sauce along them to say like Mark is rocking with us or we're rocking with Mark or like Mick Love in like you the comments and it like doesn't matter what race or ethnicity they're borrowing from like this is just like a uniformly exciting thing to I guess like all minority groups. And like this kid his name is Nate DeWiner, but it took me until yesterday to realize that DeWiner might not actually be his last name. It's like that he's identifying him as DeWiner, yeah, and he like loves soka music. He like went to carnival like he can like booty pop to not she was saying though that she had some sort of inclination that nasty was going to pop off because she got a lot of positive feedback from people in her life about it like just other artists being like I love this song. But definitely it's in line with this sort of like bad bitches and parent music like Cockroach Summer like Megan the Sign and like Freak Nasty and she has used this refrain before on a different song I'm like trying to remember that she's been a nasty girl. Yeah, like those she specifically uses the phrase Freak Nasty on super love and then has a similar thing about kind of like being athletic, but yeah, I like the song it's not my favorite song. I really like some of the remixes though. When I first heard it I was like oh another like solid tonache single that like nobody will pay attention to I had no inclination that this was going to be something yawned just like another me's or another bounce in or it was just so crazy to me like you can't expect to these things to happen like it's just so fucking random. The other thing is like the video is not that memorable to me either like one thing we didn't mention about bounce and it's like bounce and has a great video with those trampolines. I love that video where like all of her in the back of dancers is kind of like on the lead trampolines and like that's such a great video. The Nasty video like I've watched a few times I can't even remember it's just so crazy the way that these things work like I just remember the first time I heard this I was like okay another tonache single like that you know we'll get 13 million streams on Spotify and that will be the end of it basically. Yeah, I don't think that people who are listening to Nasty are then like ransacking her catalog for more like I think it's just like they know the Nasty song and that's it. Which is kind of sad because if you do like Nasty like there's a lot of songs in her catalog that will also be I would think I don't know maybe it's just all the other things we were talking about about you know not having like a very specific kind of like hookiness or quirk for people to latch on to and that kind of stuff. One thing I will say about Nasty cat is it sounds a little like to on I mean that's one thing that you can it has a little bit of the same rhythm mood narcotic feeling but also propulsive feeling of to on so maybe in some ways it's like a rejoinder to the other tonache song that people love so it's connected. And I also think I've got stamina they say I'm an athlete is like the mantra of her career like she does have stamina right she is an athlete. Absolutely. She's a black belt in Taekwondo. If nothing else you have to admire the tenacity and the consistency like she has kept at this. That's why again I want to connect this to the brat moment because I think it's really similar and the timelines line up perfectly. It's like you have two artists who in 2014 have these like major breakthrough hits one with an actual DJ mustard song and one with a fake DJ mustard song with Iggy Azalea to boot. And then you have two artists that basically can't capitalize on that for whatever reason what they're doing doesn't connect and so they retreat into making like more esoteric music that's like for a cult audience and they work really hard at developing this cult of fans that are like super obsessed with them and they keep at it like both of them have released a lot of music in the interim and like really have built these whole like alternative careers and then right in the same moment all the sudden they're getting nods from mainstream again which is so interesting to me like what do you think's in the water about that is that just like a TikTok thing there has to be a connection between what's happening with brat and what's happening with nassie because they've collaborated first of all and their careers map very closely on to one another like this moment of them both getting virality all of a sudden 10 years after their breakthrough is weirdly connected. I just keep trying to think about like one of the circumstances of 2024 in particular that is like allowing both Charlie X the X and to Nassie to all of a sudden have hot 100 hits once again out of seeming nowhere like it's surprising to me I mean I'm happy for both of them but it's just really interesting to me. Monoculture fatigue post. Monoculture fatigue that's what I had come back to. Like the cult pop star thing is mainstream and like now they're capitalizing on that. The one thing I'll say about the difference between brat and nassie Charlie and Tanashe is like obviously Charlie branded brat into a lifestyle and that's why it has such longevity even though people are declaring brat summer over is like people love to inhabit the universe and the universe can keep expanding I'm excited for the remix album and I have bats on who's gonna be there whereas like we have this angel trilogy that's being set up so we have BB Angel, Quantum Baby and then I don't think she's an acetidal the third one but when I was like asking her about the difference between these installations of the trilogy or even the overall concept of the trilogy I think there's not as much there it's like one is softer maybe there's like a light theme of like I don't remember like rebirth or something but it feels less like something that you could sort of extrapolate outward from and see like clear vision through or like there is a clear vision in the sonic direction of it but it's not like someone who isn't in the know about Tanashe would be able to like latch onto it the way that people are able to latch onto brat. Right and Charlie wants this more evidently than Tanashe does like I feel like Charlie has waited 10 years for this moment and she is ready to fucking capitalize on it like you could see it she's on TikTok she's doing everything she got Lord on that remix and fucking three days after everybody was freaking out about I mean she is ready to seize the moment and she loves it I mean tweeting Kamala is brat one hour after Kamala got nominated like Charlie wants this moment to be happening and she is ready and waiting in the wings to like seize it and again it kind of goes back to the earlier part of our conversation which is like maybe Tanashe is more comfortable being a bit of like a fringier figure like in that she sort of enjoys it and like doesn't really want to make any concessions and she just wants to kind of do what she does and like make her little albums and be this kind of holy realized independent world and like that's kind of what she does and maybe that's it's own nice thing at the end of the day like in a way I kind of appreciate that about Tanashe as much as I love watching Charlie just like eat up every moment of Like, I thought it was interesting when Tanache dropped the nasty one. remixes, and I'm like, "Okay, so the two people you got for this are Chloe Bailey and Tyga?" Like, that is not the moves of somebody that like wants this song to explode on the charts. Like, what if she called up Janet? Like, what if she somehow managed to get like Ariana, like, there's so many people you could picture that could fit on this song that would have actually helped it. And Chloe Bailey and Tyga are not those two people. But that doesn't seem like an intentional decision to like establish her own lane so much it's just kind of like a bad. There sounds like something that like a label would dream, but then it's like not that interesting of a choice. Because the real like avant-garde mood is like unique, and like, jane or mover on the initial slate of destiny remixes. Chloe I think makes sense. Like, I know one is really excited about Tyga. I saw a lot of two sort of like, "Tyla" like, "Tyla would be great." And these are more like, major figures that don't feel like as fresh as even like Tinashe. Yeah. Maybe it is a function of like that was all that she could must or maybe like from her position without the major label backing. Like if she wanted Ariana, maybe she needed an A in our person to help facilitate that or something. Anyway, before we talk about the pantheon, I'm curious just like what you see as Tinashe's legacy. If we look back at Tinashe's career over the last 10-15 years, as we look back on it in 10 or 15 years, like, what do you think her impact is on the pop space if there is any at all? Do we see her influence in artists that have come after her in any notable way? One of her primary legacies is showing people that you can like stick to your vision and make it as an independent artist who is committed to doing all of the pop things, which is like singer, dancer, producer, giving a real life performance. And like, it's not just the version of the independent artist that is like, cowering away behind the laptop in the bedroom. Like, she is in some ways like a very traditional artist and so that's something that I see. She leaves behind like an incredibly solid body of work and will be like really beloved in the more like niche middle class spaces for a long time. And I think maybe she shows people that it's also more preferable as we've been kind of leading to to be in that space than it is to make all these compromises. Yes. And as we've mentioned, Tate McCray, I'm thinking just about this like big dance moment that was happening last year with Tate, Josefant, Victoria Monet, Tinashe. Well, I think that I think of when we're thinking of like a really good dancer who can bring choreography. So those are all the things I think of when I think of the legacy of Tase. I was sad that she and Chagra had to cancel their joint tour together and I would really love to see her hang out with more of those people or like drift in this almost like British club space because it seems like in some ways it's just a natural fit with all of those figures. But you know, it's obviously up to her of like how she wants to take her work and I think no matter what, like the music is going to be very good. Yeah. I completely agree. I think her number one legacy above all else is yes, keeping alive kind of like the choreo driven pop star. But also I think as you mentioned, she is a and we're going to talk about this next segment but she's a consummate and kind of prescient artist in the lane of creating in deep pop stardom. And I think that like we're going to see that become a proliferating force. We already are seeing it. But I think we are going to only continue to see a proliferation of in deep pop stardom and I think in many instances people will look back at Tanasha as a blueprint for doing that well and she's proved that it's possible. And I think that that's an incredibly important part of her legacy. I'm going to ask you a really boring question unfortunately to finish us up here but like what tier of the pop pantheon do you think Tanasha belongs in? I mean I almost haven't laughing at how obvious this is but what do you think? Well she is obviously a niche legend. Hello. Like text book. You're like tier one. Definition. Rabbits small fan base of in the no pop fans constantly deemed underrated, you know, one to two songs that broke through like literally checking off every box. Yes. And this is on legend. Yes. Kat, I can't say I'm going to fight you on that. I think that is exactly what Tanasha is. I think she in some ways is like superlative to the term. So unfortunately a boring segment of the show but Tanasha is a queen of the niche legend space. I think someone that we will come to associate long term with the categories. So she belongs in there for sure. Final question for you. What is an underrated Tanasha song? One that we have not spoken about in depth today that we should send the podcast out on. We didn't talk about it in depth. I say the chase. I love that song. The chase. Yeah. I love that one too. Okay. So let's go out on Tanasha's the chase from 2021's 3333, Kat Zang. Thank you so much for being here. It was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for having me. Didn't take long to decide. Did I go in place to buy? Okay. So there you have it. "Pampy" on Tanasha, a certified and bona fide niche legend if I've ever heard one. The judgment is rendered. I want to say thank you to the fabulous Kat Zang for being such a great guest to Russ Martin for everything he does to make the show happen every week. Laura Taylor for her help with the editing and to Alex Lobo for her help with the artwork. Don't forget to come out to our live show Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and the Millennial Diva Kanundrum on September 30th at Dynasty typewriter in Los Angeles. Tickets are available at potpantianpod.com or by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode. Gorgeous, gorgeous is Saturday night in Los Angeles at Los Globo's in Silver Lake and it is on September 13th at Sultan Room in Bushwick. Tickets for both of those are available in the show notes of this episode. Follow us on social media at potpantianpod. I'm at DJ L-O-U-I-E, X-I-V on Twitter and Instagram, merch at potpantianpod.com, patreon@[email protected]/potpantian or audio only directly in the Apple Podcast app and until we meet again, have a wonderful life. Bye-bye!