Let’s be honest here: how could anybody match Tinashe’s freak? Ten years after turning heads with her excellent debut Aquarius, and the smash “2 On,” Tinashe is hitting new peaks this year. “Nasty” was one of the most indelible hits of summer 2024—a pop summer that was not exactly skimpy on indelible hits. With her deep-chill voice and the Ricky Reed/Zack Sekoff production, Tinashe got everyone walking around for months with the hook “I’ve been a nasty girl” stuck in our heads. She’s no rookie in the freak game, but Quantum Baby proves she’s still exploring new sides of her artistry, showing off her adventurous style of alternative R&B.
“Nasty” won Tinashe a whole new audience that is just now catching up with her crazy-underrated mid-2010s gems like Nightride and Joyride. But she really hit her stride in her slept-on run of excellent indie albums in the past five years—Song for You, 333, and BB/Ang3l, going her own way creatively. Quantum Baby is the second chapter in a trilogy that she began last year with BB/Ang3l, with the theme of adult self-discovery. “Lessons I’ve learned?” she asks in the opener “No Simulation.” “I think the answer is just to go deeper.”
Quantum Baby builds on “Nasty” with moody electric-blue pop and sultry alternative R&B, held together by Tinashe’s ineffable cool. The album is short and sweet, 8 songs in just 22 minutes, but it goes places. Her voice floats over the over the stylistic back-and-forth of the beats, weaving between evocative EDM-style beats and straight-up pop choruses. “Getting No Sleep” is a superb ode to a lost sex weekend, with Tinashe holding court over fierce drum-and-bass beats, with spikes of abrasive disco strings.
The sound is understated yet evocative, as Tinashe keeps lingering on the threshold between impulsive erotic craving and full-immersion all-in romance. She sums up the tension in “Cross That Line,” her voice seething over minimal finger-snaps and snippets of jungle percussion, as she muses, “You could be the love of my life, I’m ready to cross that line,” rhyming “all in” with “fallin’.” But the confidence in her voice never seems to falter. “Nobody really gets over me,” she boasts in “No Broke Boys,” letting the new guy know he’s just another groupie to her. “Nasty” is the highlight—but how would it not be? Quantum Baby doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it flaunts Tinashe’s charisma as an independent-minded artist—one of the most unmatchable freaks in the game.
Nicolas Gerardin
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