Tinashe explores her vulnerable side on the sleek, strong Popstar

“Think I’m gonna lose it,” she declares on the thumping “Crash Out”, “I don’t even care no more.” As someone who’s voraciously chased stardom since the age of 14, her unflappable persona has rarely signalled that the strife has gotten to her, smiling slyly while whipping through athletic choreography. But here, the facade drops: the haters are getting loud. Tinashe’s eighth album, Popstar, lays bare the anxieties and struggles of the path to fame. Her eyes on the cover harbour circles of stars, distant and tiny, suggestive of a glimpse of what she's been pursuing rather than a fully-fledged dream. Its no-frills title might feel as sexless and perfunctory as an occupation checkbox on a doctor's form, but Popstar is by far her most vulnerable and burning album, and it might just be her best too. My ears first perked up with “Too Easy”, the album's thudding and jerky lead single. “I feel like a celebrity,” she sings. But why only “feel”? Despite business disputes and her constant underdog status, Tinashe has never succumbed to others' underestimations. This is, after all, a woman who once said a documentary of her life would need “fifty sequels” – and that was six years before the com...