Tinashe

As a singer, actor, and dancer who did her first movie when she was only five, Tinashe got a head start when it came to learning how to fit into many roles and connect with a wide range of collaborators. However valuable those experiences were for the performer—who was born Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe in Lexington, Kentucky in 1993—Tinashe seemed to have an innate defiance of being typecast. After she shifted out of acting and began her music career in girl group the Stunners, Tinashe came into her own with a series of self-recorded mixtapes that established her ability to combine pop’s immediacy and R&B’s intimacy with rhythms and textures drawn from trap and electro. On her breakthrough 2014 hit, “2 On,” she added dancehall flavors and a guest verse by ScHoolboy Q as further proof of her versatility. On her first three albums for RCA—2014’s Aquarius, 2016’s Nightride, and 2018’s Joyride—she continued to refine own spacy, sultry identity with assistance from Future, Ty Dolla $ign, and Little Dragon, as well as behind-the-board heavyweights like Stargate and Blood Orange’s Devonté Hynes. A new alliance with JAY Z’s Roc Nation management team led to a fresh chance to assert herself on 2019’s Songs for You, a self-released album that’s every bit as diverse, captivating, and enigmatic as her early mixtapes.