Tinashe & Key ‘Popstar’ Collaborators Go Behind the Scenes of Her Career-Defining Opus: ‘We Have to F—k People Up Beyond Repair With This Music’ 

Tinashe is on Cloud 9.

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Her current state of professional euphoria also doubles as the title of the penultimate track on Popstar, the album that earned her the biggest sales week and highest-charting project of her career when it debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 two weeks ago (chart dated Oct. 10), with 35,500 units earned —22,000 of which were pure sales.

The acclaimed multihyphenate, 33, is deboarding a plane as we catch up exactly one week after Popstar began its envelopment of the current zeitgeist. In a few hours, she’ll perform a pair of Popstar songs as a special guest during Charli xcx’s headlining Austin City Limits set — a coronation from one long-underrated pop architect who finally clinched a mainstream moment to another under-recognized pop polymath, on the precipice of what looks to be her own culture-dominating era.

“I’ve never created my art to fit the charts or chased success in that way, but I’ve always felt it would be very nice to receive that kind of validation,” Tinashe says. “To go from mentally and emotionally unsubscribing from all that to finally be kissing the top 10 is a big dream come true.”

Tinashe’s Popstar moment has been a lifetime in the making. Born to professor parents in Kentucky, Tinashe came of age in Los Angeles, embarking on an entertainment industry odyssey that landed her a role in 2004’s The Polar Express, a spot in the late-‘00s girl group The Stunners and a Masked and Anonymous in-movie performance of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” that drew praise from famed film critic Roger Ebert. After establishing the genesis of her bedroom pop-meets-alternative-meets-dance-meets-R&B sound with a trio of early-2010s mixtapes, she signed with RCA Records, kicking off a tumultuous journey that resulted in major highs like 2014’s quadruple-platinum “2 On” (with ScHoolboy Q) and much-publicized lows like the complications surrounding the release of 2016’s Nightride and 2018’s Joyride.

By the top of 2019, Tinashe regained her creative control and entered an era of independence, re-establishing herself as one of the most innovative minds in the pop ecosystem with that winter’s Songs for You. “[That album] was a big deal in our label offices,” Nice Life Recording Company founder and Grammy-winning Popstar producer Ricky Reed tells Billboard. “All the kids loved it; it was such a good album. A little after COVID, I heard she was interested in a label partner, so I met her and her manager [Simonne Solitro].”

Because Tinashe had her guard up, that first meeting was pretty rocky. But as Reed learned more about her lifelong experience in the industry, he realized she was “rightfully looking at a new partnership with skepticism.” As she slowly put down her guard over the course of their first few studio sessions, Tinashe and Reed entered a white-hot creative flow, which kicked off with 2023’s BB/Ang3l and its standout single “Needs.” Tinashe officially joined Reed’s Atlantic Records imprint in July 2023.

A key element of Tinashe’s recent career arc has been a steady stream of singles that enraptured new corners of social media with each subsequent release. “Needs” built on the goodwill she earned from “Boucin’” (off 2021’s 333), which, in turn, capitalized on the buzz she garnered from Songs for You’s “Die a Little Bit” and “Save Room for Us.” And that momentum perfectly culminated in the first song that Tinashe and Reed made together from top to bottom: “Nasty.”

That slinky banger famously kickstarted Tinashe’s mainstream renaissance, peaking at No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 and marking her first appearance on the chart since “2 On” a decade prior. Crafted in the lead-up to her 2024 Coachella performance, “Nasty” showed Reed that, “When you come into the studio with Tinashe, you can’t come in with a painting started. At the very most, come in with a palette of colors. And even then, she’ll help you refine your palette.”

While “Nasty” showed how far Tinashe’s penchant for minimalism could take her, the following year’s Disco Lines remix of “No Broke Boys” proved she could score even bigger wins by flirting with maximalism. The high-octane EDM flip significantly boosted Tinashe’s profile in the dance world, while also helping “No Broke Boys” become her third career Hot 100 entry (No. 36).

The remix’s success also gave way to Tinashe’s partnership with Atlantic Records, once the major label proved to her what it could do in collaboration with Nice Life. “A lot of my artist and producer friends were also calling like, Tinashe is really interesting, she’s so dope,” remembers Atlantic executive vice president and co-head of pop A&R Brandon Davis. “Charli xcx is one of my artists, and obviously she put Tinashe on the [Brat] remix album. Charli was really championing her, which was amazing, and allowed me to see Tinashe through a bit of a different lens than what she was originally presented through.”

In the throes of all this, Tinashe was planting the first seeds that would bloom into Popstar, which eventually arrived via Nice Life, Atlantic and Tinashe Music Inc.

“The first song I made for the project was ‘Popstar,’” Tinashe reveals. “I knew [pop stardom] was a huge theme I wanted to centralize [the album] around. The second song I made was ‘Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore.’ And then I made a bunch of songs that I didn’t love and finished the album a year later.”

She got to work right after wrapping the BB/Ang3l Tour in 2024, a period she calls “transitional” as her relationship with Reed began to blossom. BB/Ang3l and 2024’s Quantum Baby helped regrow her confidence and self-assuredness, and “as much as we would disagree on things creatively sometimes, [Ricky] always deferred to my instinct,” she says. “I felt supported and like I was in a place where I could curate my ideas.”

As Reed tells Billboard from Nice Life’s Echo Park recording studio, the mantra for the earliest Popstar sessions was: We have to f—k people up beyond repair with this music. “We were making the most avant-garde, f—king maximalist tracks, just swinging for the fences, and [Tinashe] was with it,” he says. “But ‘I’d Rather Be Alone’ was the only one she took from those early sessions and wrote to. We learned that [with Tinashe], no matter how hard or big you want to go, her tendency towards minimalism is always going to be what ignites an amazing Tinashe song.” At a certain point, Reed shifted from working on specific songs to assisting Tinashe on the “grimiest DJ set of her career to date” and having “deep, almost tearful conversations” about what would become Popstar.

Around March 2025, just a few months before the Disco Lines remix of “No Broke Boys” landed, Connor Echausse, Tinashe’s A&R, entered the Popstar sessions. He first joined Nice Life as part of Reed’s management team, pitched in during Quantum Baby, and was named vice president of A&R in October 2025. Not much connected for Tinashe in those initial sessions, so she took the summer off, with the “No Broke Boys” remix buying her time to continue cooking. By September, she returned to the lab with one request: “I want to do something left.”

“We slowly uncovered what [‘left’] sounded like by me sending her things like underscores and Frost Children and asking questions like: What is too much? What feels good to you? What are some things I should be looking out for sonically and sending to you?” Echausse explains. “I brought in people like Kimj (‘Too Easy’), Nightfeelings (‘Melatonin’), Dave Hamelin (‘Cloud 9’) and Amy Allen (‘Heavy Weight’). We also got her and Illangelo back together. Tinashe would tell me who she needed in the room, so we also added people she’s worked with before and has a comfortability with, like Zack Sekoff (‘I’d Rather Be Alone’).”

Tinashe’s singular vision is precisely what makes Popstar such an essential addition to her catalog — and to pop music in 2026. She flexed her relationship with Brooklyn DJ and producer Kingdom to craft Popstar’s two guiding songs — “Nobody Wanna Dance” and the title track — as well as “Twentyfive Eight.” She also knew what she needed as a writer for songs like the hip-hop-inflected “Flashbacks,” which spurred Echausse to recruit songwriter Doobie (born Lewis Donte Shoates), who’s worked with MCs such as Cardi B. It was also Tinashe’s ear that caught Casey Mattson’s metallic “Brainrot” beat in a folder filled with brain-rattling tracks.

Creatives from across the music industry have always loved Tinashe, which allowed her and Echausse to seamlessly move through genres as they reached out to new collaborators. “What they worked on didn’t end up making the album, but [she] and The Dare are really tight now,” says Echausee. “I reached out to The Dare’s manager about Tinashe and Harrison working together, and once I listed off the other collaborators, it was a no-brainer. I didn’t get a lot of ‘no’s when reaching out to people. There’s something about her artistry that people resonate with across all genres.”

The bulk of Popstar came together last winter. Tinashe spent two weeks over the holidays holed up with her brother (and “Flashbacks” co-writer) Thulani Kachingwe, and engineer Ike Schultz, “completely immersing herself in the process [and] making 10 out of the 16 songs [on the Popstar tracklist],” she says. “Last Christmas was a big turning point for the project.”

Ahead of presenting the album to Atlantic near the end of January, Reed and Tinashe made a 17-minute megamix of Popstar. Although they finalized the mix just two nights before the label playback, some of those sequencing choices made it to the final album, like the fan-favorite transition between “Rather Be Alone” and “Crash Out.” “That was the first time an artist had ever presented their music as a megamix, and they transformed the room into a club,” recalls Davis. “The mix perfectly showed what a chameleon Tinashe is. We were like, Thank you for presenting it this way, because now we’re able to go do our jobs properly.”

The label requested Tinashe play the entire mix twice in that meeting — and they even talked about potentially releasing it for fans, though that’s still up in the air — which solidified that the promotional campaign would champion Popstar in its entirety as opposed to singling out one or two individual songs. To do so, Tinashe specifically selected singles that felt like “strong individual characters that could subvert expectations and deconstruct classic tropes associated with pop stardom”: “Too Easy,” “Crash Out,” “Melatonin,” “Pillow Fight” and “I’d Rather Be Alone.” None of those songs resulted in major chart moments, but they steadily built momentum and intrigue ahead of the full album, which Tinashe bolstered with several key in-person appearances.

“The club was very important, so we had her in those environments, which also allowed her to showcase her dance ability,” notes Davis. “Her Outside Lands performance was a phenomenal, choreographed moment that we paired with a DJ set [right after]. She also did her own DJ sets at club appearances, putting her next to people like The Dare and PinkPantheress, who live in the club and the intersection of dance and pop culture.”

That balance of grimy underground clubs and the world’s biggest, glitziest stages is exactly what makes Tinashe such a compelling pop star — and her peers took notice. As Popstar discourse reached a fever pitch during release week, several buzzy tastemakers across the pop, electronic and alternative worlds threw their weight behind Tinashe. Charli xcx posted Instagram photo sets to “Pillow Fight” and cameoed in TikToks showcasing the “Melatonin” choreography, Clairo declared “Crash Out” her song of the summer, Tove Lo named “Melatonin” her pre-show hype track, and PinkPantheress spammed her Instagram Story with the title track. Even Duo of DuoLingo spoofed the album cover.

The Popstar album artwork — a zoomed-in, Hugo Comte-captured photo of a literally starry-eyed Tinashe staring off into the distance with headphones over her ears — also whipped up its own storm of discourse when Tinashe debuted it on July 16. Not unlike some initial fan response to Charli’s instantly iconic bright green, text-based Brat artwork, several Tinashe supporters challenged her choice of artwork and suggested more traditional glamour shots. But she stuck to her guns, telling Billboard, “I knew [the cover] would be a conversation starter because it was meant to be one. It’s an unexpected twist; you wouldn’t expect an album called ‘Popstar’ to have a cover that looks that way. The girls that get it, get it!”

“Perhaps in the past, [Tinashe has] been put in a position where she’s had to — I don’t want to put words in her mouth — doubt her own artistry,” reflects Davis. “What [we at Atlantic], her team, her manager and agents and the Nice Life team have doubled down on her vision and given her a platform. It’s okay to be multi-genre and explore and experiment.”

And, of course, that coveted 9.0 rating from Pitchfork on Sept. 30 shot Popstar into the stratosphere in terms of cultural buzz during release week, likely putting the album on the radar of listeners who weren’t checking for it before. Across Sept. 28 and 29, Popstar earned 3.5 million official on-demand U.S. streams, with that figure leaping 48% to over 5.2 million official streams collected between Sept. 30 and Oct. 1. “It was really surreal to receive that kind of blatant critical acclaim,” she reflects. “For a long time, I’ve had people riding for me, but it was less obvious and in your face.”

Those longtime Tinashe fans also showed up in the sales numbers. That 22,000 sales figure was cushioned by several different versions (instrumental, a cappella, and a bonus edition featuring DJ flips of select tracks and an extended version of “Too Easy”) serviced to fans mid-tracking week to meet their demand for all things Popstar — and to cheer Tinashe on.

“You want to give the fans tools to rally; it became a badge of honor to buy the album on iTunes, screenshot it and show people you did,” says Davis. “Never do something that feels too commerce-driven or exploitative, but always do right by the fans and artists. A lot of this was in real time, but we talked to Tinashe a week before release about the recent trends on iTunes, and she was very supportive and excited about it. It’s funny, iTunes is back; people are moving real volume on there!”

As Tinashe, Nice Life and Atlantic look ahead to the upcoming months and years of the Popstar campaign, their main goal is maintaining the earnest, wholesome energy of the “uplift Tinashe” fan campaign that emerged during release week, and has since become a rallying cry to galvanize support for Black women in pop music. She’ll play a trio of shows in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York for her Three Nights With a Popstar Tour at the end of October, which will give way to her set at Chappell Roan’s Super Graphic Spectacular (where she’ll play with Roan’s band, as opposed to dancers), and then an opening stint for Harry Styles’ stadium-conquering Together, Together tour next spring in Glendale, Ariz. And Atlantic is still keeping a close eye on both streaming stats and fan enthusiasm to determine what the main Popstar radio single will be.

“We’re not just investing in one song; it’s gotta be a multi-song approach right now to continue to spread the whole body of work,” Davis affirms. “I don’t wanna give too many surprises and secrets away, but the vision for this campaign has [been] and always will be long-arc. This [campaign] is many, many months and years.”

Tinashe’s mainstream commercial resurgence is the latest successful project for Nice Life, following Reed’s work with Lizzo (“About Damn Time”) and The Marías (Submarine). As much as this moment gives credence to a more modern kind of artist-label partnership that allows the artist to retain independence and creative control, Popstar is also a key inflection point for the current Black pop girl renaissance.

“Black women should never feel limited and put in a box — and I really felt that way for years,” Tinashe says. “There [are] so many people that are demonstrating the expansiveness of Black women. I’m so thankful I landed on the title Popstar, because it forced people to understand and look at this album the way that I intended, versus the way that they want to perceive me.”