The Stunning Transformation Of Tinashe

In 2010, Mike Nazzaro worked at Universal Records. He tagged along on Justin Bieber's "My World Tour," but it wasn't Bieber who caught his eye. Instead, Nazzaro noticed one of the openers, a member of The Stunners. "You see the group element when you're on the road, and you can pick out who's really running it. Tinashe was easy to identify," Nazzaro told Dazed. "She was only 16 or 17, but she had 'it' — she was a star."

Nazzaro soon realized why the teenager conducted herself like an industry vet. "She was super professional, and already had such a heavy background in entertainment," Nazzaro noted. She'd been an actor since she was young, and she'd been writing her own music since she was even younger.

At whatever point you start following Tinashe's career, just know that she's already been around, putting in the work and steadily building a resume that would put more famous stars to shame. No matter how much you may think she's already hit her peak, she continues to grow.

Before she dropped her last name, Tinashe was born Tinashe Kachingwe in 1993. Her father is from Zimbabwe, while her mother is from Iowa with Norwegian, Danish, and Irish heritage. She was born in Kentucky, but as an interracial couple, her parents felt uncomfortable there. "When we moved to the South, it was different and we could feel it," her father told Complex. Instead, they moved to California in 2001.

Still, Tinashe struggled in school, feeling like she didn't fit in; the town they'd moved to was only 1% Black. "Nobody wanted to f*** with me," she recalled. "As far as the guys go, nobody wanted to like me or date me. They'd talk to me in secret and then at school they'd ignore me."

Instead, she left high school after ninth grade to pursue entertainment. After all, her love of performance had shown up at a very early age. She and her brothers put on a Christmas show every year, and she'd competed on "America's Most Talented Kid" when she was only 11. Reflecting on how she was able to tap into such gravitas at an early age, Tinashe offered, "I matured faster."

While Tinashe would end up primarily a singer, she initially stepped into the entertainment world as an actor. "I've done some cool stuff in my life. I've got to be a part of like, some really cool stuff," Tinashe told the "Zach Sang Show" in 2023. 

In 2004, she was a motion-capture performer on "The Polar Express," a Tom Hanks-led Christmas movie where she played a little girl with pigtails. "I was in fourth grade, and we had to come in every day and wear these, like, big motion-capture suits ... We had all the little dots and the electrodes. It was a really cool experience." After the movie was animated, the producers hired voice actors to re-dub all the dialogue, so while Tinashe physically performed in the film, it wasn't not her voice.

Tinashe's acting credits also include an arc on "Two and a Half Men" and the Cartoon Network series "Out Of Jimmy's Head," a show about a kid who imagines numerous animated characters. On that show, she was one of the live-action leads. It only ran for 20 episodes, and she looked back on the experience on X, formerly Twitter, a few years later. "I'm watching all of the old season 1 episodes- HAHAHA!! SO FUNNY!!" she wrote. "I look sooo wittleeee."

In the late 2000s, Tinashe linked up with future Disney star Hayley Kiyoko and several other bandmates, launching a girl group called The Stunners. They amassed a bit of popularity at the end of the decade, giving Tinashe a perfect entry point into music. She later told Business Insider that she was grateful for the experience. "I think it taught me so much about the music industry," she said. "I always knew I wanted to do music, but I'd never recorded in a major recording studio. I'd never gone on tour before. I'd never shot a professional music video before. So, all of these firsts for me were in The Stunners, and it really gave me that experience under my belt."

They had music on the "iCarly" soundtrack, and they opened for Justin Bieber on the "My World Tour." "His fans were just so crazy," she recalled, remembering the way crowds would gather outside the tour bus. "Just the most piercing screams you've ever heard. I felt like the s*** because I was kind of a part of it too. The fans were screaming for us, too, because we were just somewhat associated."

In addition to industry experience, being in The Stunners also helped grow Tinashe's confidence. "I think it gave me a little bit of an advantage when I did decide to finally start pursuing my solo career," she said. "I was like, 'Okay, I know how this works now.'"

After The Stunners disbanded, Tinashe struck out on her own. She released several mixtapes, signing with RCA Records. Tinashe finally hit the mainstream with "2 On," a track about mixing alcohol and weed. The song was her first and biggest hit, having climbed all the way to No. 24 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2014, she told The Recording Academy that the song made it possible for her to take her career to the next level. "It's the first time that it really validated my career was going in the direction that I really wanted it to," she said. "Now that I'm able to perform my music for, you know, fans all over the world, and they know the lyrics ... It's really a blessing."

An early hit like "2 On" can be a curse, too. Tinashe later told Business Insider that she felt pressured to live up to that song. "To this day I'm hoping I'll beat '2 On,'" she said in 2023. "I hope that isn't my biggest hit I've ever had ever for the rest of my life." 

The success of "2 On" and her debut album "Aquarius" meant that Tinashe's life changed in a major way. Still, she told Complex, she was ready for even more. "I've set this up so that my entire life is based on this, and if this fails I have nothing else," she said. "It'll eventually work because it can't not work."

In 2016, Tinashe's star was firmly on the rise. That year, Britney Spears tapped her to appear on "Slumber Party," a song from the popstar's album "Glory." Spears told MTV (via Yahoo!), "I just always see my fans talking about her online, and it just made so much sense to collaborate on this song. She was amazing." For her part, Tinashe shared a sultry snap with the singer on Instagram, writing that Spears was her idol. "Basically your whole life is a dream so you keep it cute for Brit but inside you are wigless and dead," she joked in the caption.

After the song was released, Tinashe joined Spears onstage at her Las Vegas residency to perform the song. Despite gushing over her collaborator in interviews, Spears excitedly told the crowd, "Everybody give it up for Tinasha!" Fans on social media leaned in to the mix-up, including one who tweeted at the "All Hands On Deck" singer, "Your name is Tinasha from now on, Britney is never wrong."

Tinashe still gets regularly asked about the collaboration, especially in the wake of the legal battle that led to Britney Spears being freed from her longtime conservatorship. In 2021, Tinashe told ET, "I think that that is part of her legacy that's really beautiful, is how genuine she is. I just want to see her continue to win and thrive, and do whatever she wants to do."

Despite her early success under RCA Records, the label pulled back on supporting her next few releases. In late 2016, realizing that RCA had no plans to release her long-delayed second album "Joyride," Tinashe dropped a number of songs from the project online as a mixtape called "Nightride." On X, she shared a snap of a handwritten note explaining the intention behind the project. "This is the beginning of the journey, one people of the puzzle that makes me who I am both as an artist and as a human," she said.

The "Company" singer was quite clear with her fans that the "Joyride" delay was due to record label meddling. Idolator reported on a group chat between Tinashe and fans, during which she claimed, "Idk they're focused on Zany lmao that's the real tea." In other words, RCA was focused on pushing Zayn Malik's debut album, and her own project had been shelved in the meantime.

On Lena Dunham's "Women of the Hour" podcast (via UPROXX), Tinashe recounted a disappointing studio session, during which she was forced to record a song she had no interest in putting out and didn't want to stand behind. A label rep told her that if she didn't sing, everyone would just go home, leaving her without any music at all. "Why was I, as a young woman, treated as if I had won some sort of prize in being here?" she wondered.

For the most part, Tinashe's career has been one focused on music rather than drama; while she's certainly become a star, she's mostly managed to avoid the tabloid coverage that accompanies many other rises to fame. In 2018, however, that all changed. Tinashe had been dating 76ers player Ben Simmons, but TMZ captured Simmons leaving a club with Kendall Jenner. Tinashe, it seems, was at the same club. When the person recording asked the "Flame" singer if she'd seen her ex inside, Tinashe held up her phone and confessed, "He's texting me! What the hell! What is he doing! What an idiot!"

In 2020, at Roc Nation's The Brunch, Tinashe told Us Weekly that she and Simmons had split the same month he began dating Jenner. (That's not the only sketchy thing in Kendall Jenner's dating history!) Tinashe revealed, "It may have been the worst day of my life, but it's OK." Furthermore, Tinashe said that the breakup and apparent relationship overlap seem to have affected her for quite a while afterward. "I drank for, like, six months after that! Are you kidding me?" she admitted. "I was, like, wasted for months."

In 2019, after years of being frustrated with record labels that didn't give her the support she needed, Tinashe made the decision to release music independently. In doing so, she seems to have finally found the creative freedom she was lacking under her label deals. Still, she was gracious in an interview with Billboard, noting, "There were definitely ups and downs. I give them a lot of credit for helping me start out. I got to work with a lot of producers I wouldn't have had the chance to and put out my first album, which was amazing." After that, though, things went south, and she felt forced into musical directions she wouldn't have chosen for herself.

Instead, she parted ways with her entire team, hiring new people who could get her where she wanted to go without the label oversight. "I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders and I had no pressure in the studio anymore, which changed the game for me," she told Billboard.

That fall, she put out an album called "Songs For You." In interviews, Tinashe described the album as an emotional side of herself that she hadn't yet shared with fans. "I think for a long time I didn't want people to see a vulnerable side to me because I thought they would think I was weak," she told Billboard. Speaking with Glass, she reflected, "I really represent just taking it upon yourself to manifest your own destiny."

In 2023, Tinashe competed on a reality show called "Stars On Mars." Alongside celebrities like Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, "Vanderpump Rules" bar owner Tom Schwartz, and "Modern Family" alum Ariel Winter, Tinashe took part in a series of challenges meant to reflect what it would be like to live in an astronaut compound on the surface of the Red Planet. "It's a vibe!" she laughed to Billboard. "It was like, survival in space and on Mars ... The nerd in me couldn't say no."

Tinashe outlasted contestants like "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" vet Porsha Williams, ultimately coming in second place. Even Rippon, who wound up winning, said he was hoping the "Company" singer would beat him. He told Hollywood Life, "I could see Tinashe was struggling a little bit more than I was at that point, so I ran over and tried to help her with her rocket a little bit because I was like, she's got to win. She has to win." Eventually, Tinashe told him to just go ahead and take the crown for himself so that they could end the physically taxing competition. "With her blessing, I did get to be the brightest star in the universe which I really appreciate because not a lot of people can get that blessing from Tinashe," Rippon said.

Tinashe is a longtime supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community, regularly performing at Pride celebrations around the country. In 2023, before she took the stage at a West Hollywood Pride festival, Tinashe spoke with Billboard about why she likes these shows. "The audience is already ready to party!" she said. "Everyone's here with great energy, great excitement." The "Body Language" singer also ruminated on why she feels her music resonates with the community in an age of, for example, legislative attacks on trans people. "I think it's just like, a sense of unapologetic-ness, and confidence ... that bad b****, sexy, unapologetic energy," she said. "Who doesn't like that?"

In addition to advocating for the queer community at large, Tinashe is also an activist who campaigns with ViiV Healthcare, a group striving to end the stigma around HIV/AIDS diagnoses. She took part in a campaign called "Me In You, You In Me," a public awareness initiative designed to get people talking about HIV in communities of color. "I think that we need people talking about HIV and having these conversations so that it can become normalized so that people don't feel afraid to get tested, get medication, or take preventative measures," she told Business Insider. "I think people not having those conversations is really dangerous ...  I hope that by being part of it I can just can help spread that message further and further."

Early in her career, Tinashe released collaborations with both R. Kelly and Chris Brown, songs that she no longer stands behind. "I literally block out that R. Kelly song from my mind," she said on the "Zach Sang Show" in 2023. R. Kelly is serving a 20 year prison sentence for various sex crimes. "I forget that it even exists. That is so embarrassing. That is so unreal that I even have a song with R. Kelly."

Ditto her collaboration with Brown who assaulted Rihanna in a horrific domestic violence incident in 2009. Tinashe's record label at the time insisted that they add Brown to the track, called "Power." "He was their biggest artist that they had on rhythmic radio at the time," she recalled. "To me, I was like, 'Well, this is a pop song. So, I really don't feel like we should put Chris on it.' That doesn't compute to me."

Brown seems to have taken that personally. He hopped on Instagram to insult his former collaborator, writing (via Vibe), "NAME 5 TINASHE songs or die.... EVERYBODY DEAD. She full of dat evil. Shawty career is nonexistent." TMZ asked Tinashe how she felt about the beef, and she said, "I would talk to him if he wants to reach out. I'll talk to him. It's all love. It's all good."

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

In April 2024, Tinashe launched a new album era with lead single "Nasty." Late that month, a fan posted a video to X, showing a young man swiveling his hips as Tinashe sings, "I've been a nasty girl." In one month, the clip had more than 10 million views, inspiring people like Omar Apollo to try recreating the moment on TikTok. Suddenly the song was viral. On a related note, social media users quickly picked up on the meme-able potential of the lyric, "Is somebody gonna match my freak?" "Who are 2 people that actually did match each others freak?" tweeted one person. The prompt garnered more than 230 million views in a few days.

"It's so exciting," Tinashe told Time. "This is what you wait and hope for." She insisted that she's at peace with her level of career success. Still, though, she's excited by all the new attention. "Who doesn't want more people to see my hard work and to hear all of the music that we've been making?"

While Tinashe claims to have been surprised by the way the song has taken off online, she seemed to know exactly what kind of hit she had on her hands when the single came out. Describing the song to Paper before all the meme attention, Tinashe teased, "I think it's kind of all been leading up to this."