195 words about Tinashe
There is an exact moment where Tinashe was the most exciting thing in R&B and that’s the first three tracks of 2014’s Aquarius. The opening title track is a spartan mood piece that’s melodic and propulsive; it’s tasteful in a space that wants tastelessness. “Bet” is an absolute epic, hurtling past the 2nd track single expectation, limbs akimbo. Trap drums, warbling vocal manipulations from a Burial wet dream, and Tinashe centering everything, grounding it in a performance so strong and sonorous, you’ll know she’s queen. This goes on for nearly six minutes because it’s unstoppable. And yet this can’t even touch the next track, “Cold Sweat,” which stands with the very best of FKA Twigs or Grimes as an evolution of pop into something that embodies all the vital organs of several different music genres at once, hybridizing the DNA into something freakish and powerful. It’s a Cronenberg jam. Then the rest of the album and Tinashe’s career happens, and it’s all just fine, all exactly what Tinashe’s industry asks her to be. But I’m still in 2014, still in those first three tracks, trapped in that cold sweat, hoping that Tinashe can be this.