Tinashe on Popstar: a persona, a running order like a film, and no shortcuts
What Tinashe has said publicly about making her eighth album, drawn from her Stereogum cover story.
This profile is based on Tinashe's published interview with Stereogum (Arielle Gordon, 21 September 2026). Sumo38 did not interview her. Quotes are hers, as printed there.
The album at a glance
Popstar came out on 25 September on Nice Life/Atlantic, her eighth album, preceded by the singles "Too Easy", "Crash Out" and "Melatonin". It nominally closes the trilogy that began with BB/Ang3l and Quantum Baby. You can find it alongside the month's other big releases in September's new albums.
A trilogy ending that became its own thing
Tinashe started writing the record two years ago, and while it technically finishes the trilogy, she told Stereogum that "it felt like something else". She followed her instincts and kept writing until the album felt complete.
"Popstar" is a role, not a diary
She treats the title as a character she steps into rather than a description of her life. "Popstar is an energy," she said. "It's a persona one can embody."
Built to be heard in order
She sequenced the album to play like a film, starting confident and loud and turning more introspective as it goes. "We go on an adventure throughout the album," she said. That makes it a record to play front to back the first time, rather than on shuffle.
Pushing back on music as clips
Tinashe is openly resisting the pressure to break albums into short-form moments: "I'm pushing back on the TikTokification of it all, splintering creative projects into micro moments."
How it was made
According to Stereogum's reporting, the album took shape over two weeks last Christmas at a studio in Los Angeles, where she set up easels to paint between sessions. Her collaborators included Ricky Reed, Zack Sekoff and Travis Stewart, also known as Machinedrum. The piece also describes her as now comfortable asking to "get weirder" in the studio, and firmly against using AI in her art.