By Steven J. Horowitz

For anyone who’s been a member of Nashe Nation, the explosive success of Tinashe’s “Nasty” last summer was as much a matter of satisfaction as it was of validation. In the decade since her breakthrough with “2 On,” the 31-year-old has felt like a secret, just outside the mainstream sphere she once struggled to carve out. As her career has progressed, she’s begun to blur the line between where pop ends and alternative R&B begins, less concerned with accessibility than with artistic expression. The music itself has become more experimental, but never less precise.

Which is why the ascent of “Nasty” — skyrocketing up the charts, as a potential Song of Summer — was its own reward for fans who kept beating the Tinashe drum. Since leaving her RCA label in 2019, she’s increasingly scratched outside the lines of her earlier, more conventional discography, 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 example, she pushed genre boundaries, conversing with electronic and U.K. garage in ways that created a new playing field for her understated delivery — somehow slyer and more seductive than ever, without losing any of her charm.

“BB/ANG3L” was the first in a trilogy of albums that culminated in “Quantum Baby,” an expansion on the sound of its predecessor. “Nasty,” the final track in the eight-song set, isn’t exactly a blueprint for the rest of the project—only “No Broke Boys” is delivered with the same knowing smirk—but rather just one of Tinashe’s broad brushstrokes. Across this concise 22-minute journey, Tinashe plays with mood and texture in ways that feel audacious, never overstating her hand and sliding seamlessly into new creative territory.