Tinashe Searches for Truth on Satisfying ‘Quantum Baby’: Album Review

For anyone who’s been a card-carrying member of Nashe Nation, the explosive success of Tinashe’s “Nasty” this past summer was as much about satisfaction as it was a confirmation. In the decade since she broke through with “2 On,” the 31-year-old has felt like a secret, operating just outside of the mainstream orbit she once angled to trace. The further she stretched into her career, the more she began to blur the boundary of where pop ended and alternative R&B began, less concerned with accessibility than she was with artistic expression. The music itself became more experimental, yet never less precise.

It’s why the ascent of “Nasty” — up the charts, as a potential Song of Summer — was a reward unto itself for fans who’ve continued to beat the Tinashe drum. Since leaving her label RCA in 2019, she’s increasingly scribbled outside the lines of her earlier, more conventional discography by expanding her portfolio of collaborators from hip-hop producers Mustard and Metro Boomin to outliers Nosaj Thing and Kaytranda. On last year’s “BB/ANG3L,” for instance, she traipsed across genre lines and conversed with electronic and UK garage in ways that created a new playing field for her demure delivery — somehow more sly and alluring than ever, without losing any of the charm.

“BB/ANG3L” was the first in a trilogy of albums that led to “Quantum Baby,” an extension of its forerunner’s sound. “Nasty,” the final track on the eight-song set, isn’t exactly the blueprint for the rest of the project — only “No Broke Boys” is delivered with the same knowing smirk — but rather just another one of Tinashe’s broad brushstrokes. During this concise 22-minute journey, Tinashe toys with mood and texture in ways that feel daring, never overplaying her hand and seamlessly gliding into new creative areas.

If anything, “Nasty” is the instructive piece of the puzzle, operating much like “Needs” did on “BB/ANG3L.” Both were viral candidates (“Needs” even guides listeners to put their hands on their knees) yet “Nasty” reigned victorious, thanks to a perfect meme storm of dutty whining and tweet prompts. But on its own, it makes sense that the Ricky Reed and Zack Seckoff co-produced track was primed to break her chart curse. On the tune, she flits between deadpan chants and Janet Jackson-indebted come-ons in what ended up being one of the most unshakeable anthems on this side of the year.

But “Nasty” is just a charm on the bracelet of “Quantum Baby,” which contends with the kaleidoscopic nature of romance. Tinashe is a contradiction of sorts, confident and lustful (“Getting No Sleep,” “Thirsty”) and just as quickly wracked with temerity and regret (“Cross the Line,” “Red Flags”). It plays to the human experience of how messy vulnerability can be, even if it’s presented in generalities: “Lessons I’ve learned and all of the knowledge and experience that I have accumulated has led me to the question of what’s next,” she states on album opener “No Simulation.” “And I think the answer is just to go deeper.”

On that track, she plumbs for truth in love in the fallout from a relationship, her stacked vocals crashing against a percolating bass line. Her ability to interpret experiences both good and bad, and then map them to a constellation of beats and sounds, is what grants depth to “Quantum Baby,” even at its all-too-brief run time. “Red Flags” is as consuming as it is sparse, with Tinashe questioning why she remains in a relationship as synths bubble up behind her. Elsewhere, she lays her cards down on the trap-inflected “When I Get You Alone”: “You know we gon’ fuck eventually / You want me still, don’t you pretend.”

And when she’s single? “No one really gets over me, I’m unaffected,” she taunts on “No Broke Boys,” the strongest potential follow-up hit to “Nasty.” But even at eight tracks, “Quantum Baby” is all over the place thematically — at once she’s Tinashe the seductress, the next she’s Tinashe the insecure, and then suddenly she’s Tinashe the hopeless. After all, love is complicated, and what makes us human. That Tinashe can reconcile with it so strikingly is one of her greatest assets, and a testament to why the listening public continues to rediscover her after all these years.