Tink is a free, independent artist who's ready to take on her next project.
It was only three years ago when Timbaland revealed his dream where Aaliyah told him that his new prodigy, Tink, was "the one." There could be no higher compliment from the man who played a large part in the late singer's rise to fame and still affectionately calls her "baby girl." He even let Tink sample Aaliyah's "One in a Million" for her rendition, "Million."
However, it was a move that angered Tink. "I couldn't believe how it played out," she said in an interview with The Fader. "I definitely would never want to try to replace Aaliyah, or fill in her shoes. Me and Tim, we had to talk about things like that, and that was just in addition to what I noticed about the industry: all it takes is one sentence, or one line, one thing like that, and it'll go far."
Nonetheless, it seemed like Tink's stardom could only ride with Timbaland in her corner. The legendary hitmaking producer is known for crafting popular tracks like Missy Elliott's "Get Ur Freak On," Jay Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder," and Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River." On top of that, she even nabbed a coveted spot as a XXL Freshman in 2015. But despite the cards seemingly working in her favor, Tink's songs just weren't sticking with an audience or on the charts.
Outside of "Rachet Commandments," her Timbaland-produced tracks like "Dinero" and "Trust No One" had trouble gaining any traction. And it wasn't long before music fans (including us) started to wonder if the issue with her career was Timbaland.
The answer is yes—sort of. In her three years under Timbaland's music label, Mosley Music Group, Tink never released an album. In the interview, she also reveals that the famed producer is the one who held her projects back. (Although she says it was to "perfect" the project.) But instead of doing nothing, she took matters into her own hands by buying studio time, hiring producers, and putting together follow-ups to her earlier mixtapes with 2015’s Winter’s Diary 3 and 2016’s Winter’s Diary 4.
However, in January 2017, Epic Records severed ties with Mosley Music Group leaving Tink to think about doing the same.
"I just felt like nobody was paying attention to what I had going on outside of me and Tim," she said. "For me, that was the red flag. I stepped into the deal just hoping that I would be accepted for whatever I created. It wasn't that type of situation."
Now, a year later, Tink declared her freedom from the label on Instagram proving that sometimes dreams aren't what you hope to be.
Luckily, she's just getting started. She dropped a new single, "Breakin' Me," on Valentine's Day and is working on the fifth installment in her mixtape series, Winter's Diary 5.
Read The Fader's entire piece here.
