Tinashe’s career has, for large chunks, been a frustrating one and the most annoying thing about it is that it was mostly not of her own doing. Broadly speaking, Tinashe has always been someone with a furious work ethic and a hunger to put out great things and she always looked like someone who had enough about her to become the next genuinely big thing.

However, post ‘2 On’ which was a deserved gigantic club hit, she was painted into various corners which belied the brilliant potential of her self-produced music that had threatened big things. While a lot of jostling went on behind the scenes, for our money, it looked like things came to a head when she was paired with Chris Brown into some DJ Mustard-lite dance-off, and the fanbase felt like something was up.

Since then, Tinashe broke free and started doing things her own way and, this time, she had a chip on her shoulder. Instead of the boring tropes of imagined haters, she had the whole of the recording industry to prove wrong. She would return to the high quality of early self-made tracks like ‘Ecstacy’ and ‘Stargazing’, and if you remember, she was in a race with the-then hot properties like Dej Loaf and Lion Babe – but she seemed to have a lot more hustle and bite. She didn’t look like someone who would settle for one sound, and sure enough, she’d explode out in different directions.

It wouldn’t be until she parted ways with RCA that we’d start to see the potential we always thought she had. While the output was good, it wouldn’t be until 2024 that everyone started really noticing. A run of viral singles that couldn’t have been made by anyone else soon started eating everything up while the competition started to look kinda stale.

‘Nasty’ and ‘No Broke Boys’ were bona fide hits, and then the run-up to ‘Popstar’ saw her release ‘Too Easy’, ‘Crash Out’ and ‘Melatonin’, and all the while, everyone noticed that Tinashe had all this time, created a blueprint that half of K-Pop was stealing, and again, we got to enjoy Tinashe with a point to prove.

And with ‘Popstar’, she’s finally managed to combine all that potential, all that cockiness, all that energy, and put it into one cohesive album that is absolutely a career best. It’s ambitious, sure, but for the first time, it feels like it’s really ahead of the pack. Zeitgeisty, you might say.

Just on the strength of the album alone, it’s a killer – but there’s also the sweet feeling that Tinashe is finally, FINALLY, getting what she deserves. While her career has been hugely successful by anyone’s reasonable metrics, this album is the moment she gets her flowers.

With a song like ‘Melatonin’, you get the same sense of R&B futurism that you felt when you first heard ‘Single Ladies’, except this time, it’s a juggernaut driving at 100mph. This album will invariably see a reappraisal of her previous work, which is absolutely littered with gems, and for those that have felt like Tinashe was weirdly slept-on, this release and this invigoration of her older albums will be particularly satisfying.

And maybe this is always how it was supposed to work? If Tinashe had become a household name with ‘2 On’, maybe the industry would have eaten her alive – at least now, with the likelihood of being an proper, arena filling headliner, she’ll be able to enjoy it more as a mature adult who has been through it. You feel like she’ll be emboldened by all this to make even more daring decisions and push R&B into new territory.

It’s taken a decade for her to be handed the crown, and with her excellent back catalogue, smart decision making and good taste, it feels like Tinashe is finally grabbing a bunch of scenes suffering from fatigue and shaking them all by the lapels.

Undeniable. Electric. ‘Popstar’ is absolutely going to feature highly on the end of year polls. Even though Tinashe was here all this time, she’s finally arrived and it couldn’t have happened for anyone more deserving.