It's taken Tinashe almost two years to release her forthcoming album Joyride, and she revealed why on Ebro In The Morning on Thursday.
“The music business, man,” she told Hot 97. “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes, both from the creative perspective to the business perspective. Sometimes along the way, I was trying to get this album out, there was a little bit of creative discrepancies between me and my record label, whatever. There’s ebbs and flows—there’s me going through periods of time where I thought the album was done and then pushing myself to make it even better. So I’m glad it took all the time that it did ‘cause this is the best.”
The conversation then veered to other subjects, including a controversy from last summer, involving her perspective on the concept of colorism within the music industry. Tinashe made the initial comments in an interview with The Guardian, stating that there’s only enough room for a handful of black women at the top of the pop charts. Tinashe is mixed: her mother is Danish and her father is Zimbabwean.
“It got out of context in my opinion because the initial conversation was about my experience growing up in like a mixed family and that kind of community. And that got misconstrued to [me saying] that was what I was like blaming my career trajectory on, which wasn’t necessarily what I was saying.”
She also touched on her new relationship with 76ers rookie Ben Simmons, whom she met in Los Angeles and has been dating for six months. “It’s super new for me. Definitely weird, not used to it. Kind of makes me nervous, but yeah it’s fun, it’s exciting,” she said, adding, “I feel like people were already talking so it’s like you can either try to hide it and be like no, no nothing’s happening. Or you can just be upfront with it. Like I was going to all his games and people would see me there.”
While making an appearance on Desus & Mero, she clarified the rumor that her and Simmons started dating after he commented on her bedroom snap on Instagram.
“That’s a rumor that, yeah, he commented on my photo and that’s how we met,” she said. “Like, no.”
Tinashe’s next album Joyride is expected to release on April 13. She shared with Hot 97 that she will announce a tour after the project drops.
