TINASHE IN BLOOM

The singer has always bet on herself, an independent artist and a viral hitmaker who writes her own songs and dances to her own beat. Now, after a year of record fame, she's contemplating what comes next.

- BY JAZMINE HUGHES

Tinashe arrives with breaking news. We're sitting down for pedicures on a balcony at the Four Seasons Hotel in L.A., sipping prosecco, when the conversation turns to aliens. Tinashe knows I'm in town from New York, so she asks, “Were you seeing those drones in New Jersey?” I had not. When she hears this, her eyes narrow and she pauses in disbelief and disappointment. Earlier that day, she had seen reports of “fucking huge car-sized drones” flying over the Garden State, but no one, including the FBI, knew what they were.

“When I was young, I was such an alien girl,” the singer, born Tinashe Kachingwe, laughs. She decides on a pointe-shoe pink for her toes, an apt choice for a performer equally renowned for her dancing and singing. “I was checking out books about the Loch Ness Monster and aliens. I was huge on it, and I feel like I lost interest for some time because there was no new information.” The reports of possible extraterrestrial activity only thrill her; a curiosity about the paranormal fully reactivated.

We both agree that aliens likely exist in a different dimension and would have an easier time coming to us than vice versa. But she's down to travel—a far-off galaxy, deep beneath the sea, wherever—to chop it up with the creatures, provided they give her a return ticket. I ask her which one of her songs she'd like to play for the aliens; something to give them a sense of her music, as well as an opportunity for all of them to vibe together. She immediately responds with “Getting No Sleep,” last summer's dreamy, lo-fi track full of bleep-bloops that all beings of the universe can enjoy. It sounds like drifting around the galaxy in a pool float, solar winds flowing between your freshly painted toes.