By Shannon Carlin
At 21 years old, Tinashe has already toured with Justin Bieber and acted alongside Charlie Sheen. Of course, this was way back in 2008 when she was known as Tinashe Kachingwe, an up-and-coming teen actress and a member of the all-girl R&B group The Stunners; years before Beiber was throwing eggs or stealing phones and Sheen was “winning.” So long ago, in fact, that when Tinashe guest starred on Two and a Half Men she said the soon to be highest paid actor on TV was a “nice guy who was nothing but professional.”
After witnessing the pitfalls of those who started young and later lost their way, you can’t blame Tinashe for choosing not to move out of her parent’s house in La Crescenta, CA just yet. She’s seen what too much freedom can do to a person. And her mom and dad, well, they have no problem keeping her in line.
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Not that Tinashe (pronounced Tee-NAH-shay) really needs anyone to push her into high gear. After leaving The Stunners and going solo in 2011, the bedroom in her parent’s house became her private studio where she worked on three mixtapes—2012’s In Case We Die and Reverie, 2013’s Black Water — that had many comparing her to Ciara.
With her dance-filled performances (Tinashe has been studying ballet, tap and jazz since she was four years old) and a collaboration with Future featured on her upcoming debut Aquarius, these comparisons hold true. Though, she would appreciate it if people stopped calling her the “new Ciara” when the current one is doing just fine.
As Tinashe’s star continues to rise, she notices that more and more people want to pit her against other female R&B singers such as Ciara, Rihanna, Jhené Aiko and SZA, making up rivalries that do not and should not exist.
“We all sound different and don’t need to be compared or pitted against one another, there’s room for all of us in this business,” Tinashe told Radio.com over the phone. And more importantly, she says, “we need to support each other and not let other people drag us into this.” This being the pettiness that apparently only goes on between women.
Exploring her power as a woman is something that’s important to Tinashe. With her song “2 On,” featuring her favorite L.A. rapper, Schoolboy Q, she knew she wanted DJ Mustard to produce, mostly because she felt he needed to work with more women. Mustard has scored hits with YG, T.I. and Kid Ink, but other than a production credit on Keyshia Cole’s new single “She” off her upcoming album, Point of No Return, Tinashe is the only female artist Mustard has worked with.
“His beats needed a female perspective,” Tinashe says, noting that a woman’s take on partying “is getting lost on the radio” amongst other male-centric songs.
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Tinashe’s music is written from the point of view of someone that is both young and female. Some people unfortunately are not quite ready for this POV. But Tinashe isn’t interested in pleasing a few prudes who don’t like the idea of her smoking or drinking.
“I’m young, I want to hang out, I want to have fun just like everybody else,” she explained. “For me, it’s about saying what men are saying on most songs and not giving in to the double standard or the stigma.”
No one blushes when Schoolboy Q raps about pulling someone’s panties off, but Tinashe singing “just give me the trees and we can smoke it” is somehow deemed impure by her more conservative critics.
It’s a similar complaint Jhené Aiko had when she spoke with Radio.com last year after some questioned the lyrics of her song “WTH”—an acronym for “way too high”—which has her hallucinating that she’s Alice stuck in Wonderland. “I think society and some people may look down on women smoking, but if that’s what you do then you should be able to talk about it,” Aiko said in defense of her lyrics.
With “2 On” Tinashe wanted to soundtrack a night out at the club where people are doing what they do at clubs: double-fisting drinks and smoking weed. More importantly she wanted the song to be a call for independence. “I’m 21. I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary,” Tinashe says. “And you can’t tell me what to do.”
Tinashe is uninterested in being a cookie cutter pop star and doesn’t want to sound like any other R&B singer. For her upcoming debut (out Oct. 7), she enlisted help from guys like Future, Stargate, Boi-1da, Dev Hynes and A$AP Rocky, who appears on the Detail-produced ballad, “Pretend.” But it’s Tinashe who holds the key to her sound. “I feel like I just want to make music for women,” she says. “I want to say things that are positive and speak to what we’re all going through.”
Tinashe wouldn’t mind following in the footsteps of her childhood hero, Janet Jackson, who seemed more than willing to throw a little attitude around if it helped her get what she wanted. Jackson now has 10 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles and is the eleventh best-selling female recording artist in America. So, just like Ms. Jackson, if you’re nasty, Tinashe’s going to put you in your place.
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