Ahead of the release of Tinashe’s seventh studio album, Quantum Baby, The Cut’s Cat Zhang joins Pop Pantheon to discuss Tinashe’s rollercoaster career. Cat and DJ Louie dig into Tinashe’s upbringing in Lexington, Kentucky, her work as a child actor on Two and a Half Men and the girl group she was briefly in with fellow pop star Hayley Kiyoko, The Stunners. From there, they unpack her early mixtapes, explosion into the public consciousness with the sultry club banger “2 On,” her moody major label debut in 2014, Aquarius, and her years in label purgatory, during which she managed to release a return-to-roots mixtape, 2016’s Nightride, and 2018’s Joyride. Next they tackle Tinashe’s reinvention back into the bedroom artist she began as and how she blazed a new trail as an independent artist with 2019’s expansive and lush Songs For You and 2021’s critically-lauded 333. Finally, they rank Tinashe in the Official Pop Pantheon.

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