Key Takeaways
- Tinashe says she is “very anti-genre,” arguing that music categories unnecessarily limit how listeners discover music and how artists create it.
- She views pop as a boundless mix of R&B, hip-hop, dance, country and other sounds, while defining a pop star as “a persona,” “an energy” and “an attitude.”
- Her eighth album, Popstar, features 16 solo tracks and completes the trilogy that began with BB/Ang3l and continued with Quantum Baby.
Tinashe doesn't think artists or their music should have to fit neatly into a genre.
In a new interview with Nicky at Night, the singer explained why she's against categorizing music, arguing that genre labels can limit both the artists who create it and the listeners who discover it.
"See, I'm very anti-genre in general," Tinashe said. "I think it's limiting in terms of like both listeners, how they approach finding music, discovering music... how creatives are approaching making music."
"I think it keeps us in very narrow categories," she added. "That's like just unnecessary."
The conversation comes as Tinashe continues promoting her eighth studio album, Popstar, and she also offered her own interpretation of what "pop" actually means. Rather than viewing it as a rigid sound, the 33-year-old sees pop as something that can pull from virtually anywhere.
"To me, pop to me is not mutually exclusive of all of the other genres," she said. "Like I think there's R&B in pop music. I think there's hip-hop in pop music. I think there's dance in pop music. There's country in pop music."
Tinashe believes listeners sometimes associate pop with a more sanitized sound that doesn't reflect everything the genre can encompass.
"I think there's been like a watered down, very simple, very clean version of that that people kind of have like a negative connotation towards," she explained. "I think for me it's just so much more boundless than that."
That philosophy extends to the title of Popstar. For Tinashe, being a pop star isn't necessarily about the type of music someone makes.
"I feel like pop star is a way of life," she said. "It's a persona. It's an energy. It's an attitude."
Tinashe has discussed the limitations of genre throughout her latest press run. She recently told The Hollywood Reporter that being categorized was "definitely probably the biggest hindrance" to how audiences perceived her throughout her career.
Released Sept. 25, Popstar features 16 tracks without any guest appearances and marks Tinashe's first major-label album since 2018's Joyride. It also completes the trilogy she began with 2023's BB/Ang3l and followed with 2024's Quantum Baby.
