Tinashe Is Her Own Kind Of Popstar

Tinashe has an eye for detail. This becomes clear a few minutes after she arrives at the airy Bishop Gallery in Brooklyn, wearing a Denim Tears shirt aptly emblazoned with a photo of New York art world icons Lee Radziwill and Andre Leon Talley. Surveying the exhibit, a collection of native son Jean-Michel Basquiat’s early work, she pauses in front of a handwritten page from an abandoned screenplay. “His E’s,” she observes. “They’re all over the place.” Too busy trying to make sense of the plot, I had missed the strange beauty of the E’s. Maybe it’s predestined — as an Aquarius, a child actor, an oldest daughter — but the 33-year-old singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor has the keen ability to dig into what’s different. “I like to try to challenge myself to make something that is unexpected,” she says. “People will come with an idea of what they think I want to hear, or the direction I want to go. Oftentimes, it's way more interesting to challenge their idea of what that is and make the opposite of that.”Popstar is a record that bucks expectations. Tinashe’s eighth album, which she’ll release this Friday, is technically the last in a trilogy she started with 2023’s BB/Ang3l and 202...