She may have gotten her start as a child actress, but Tinashe Kachingwe never landed a more compelling role than herself. In Act I of The Tinashe Story, a plucky Los Angelena spends years battling her way out of the RCA boonies. Then, in Act II, she proves why those label execs should’ve held on tighter with a vanguard blitz of self-released projects. The title track from Tinashe’s new album Popstar—her first for a major in eight years—delivers a prequel that’s just as engrossing. The verses spill over with sharp, big-screen details: a Gucci bag that “can fit a gun,” a girl “with stars in her brown eyes,” a “‘Rari” parked “in my parents’ garage.” Popstar the album has the combined sweep and efficiency of a Super Bowl halftime show, and “Popstar” the song is its lighters-up climax. Tinashe’s been at this long enough to know how to serve recession pop the old-fashioned way, from those historically accurate Mustard finger-snaps to a vocoded hook that would make T-Pain weep. By the song’s outro, she’s locked in a flow state, double-dutching between the on- and off-beats, pronouncing “Veuve” like “voov” just so it rhymes with “woop.” How’s that for some movie magic?
