Tinashe Guardian Interview Discusses Colorism & Much More
It’s good to see a young black female artist like Tinashe out here openly talking about the issues that plague the background of the music industry and she went all out in a recent Guardian interview.
While explaining the fact that she taught herself to use the music engineering program ProTools by watching YouTube videos and created her first mixtape In Case We Die mostly on her own, Tinashe claimed, “There’s a lot of sexism in the music business, a lot of sexism. As far as female producers or female engineers…when you’re in these studios, it’s all men. It is so rare that they’d not even expect me to have an opinion.”
She also partly blamed the constant delays of her 2nd studio album Joyride on the fact that studios would rather spend time with male artists. “It’s so much easier for male artists, I know it is,” she says. Tinashe posted a message on Twitter in 2016, shortly after the announcement of Joyride, that said part of the hold-up was down to her label focusing on “Zany” (Zayn Malik). “I sent that message, yeah, that RCA was focused on Zayn? They were! But I have nothing against him; more power to him.”
In regards to colorism, Tinashe recounted a conversation with her cousin in which her cousin’s acquaintance implied that she couldn’t be a fan to more than one black female artist. “Recently, my cousin was with a friend of a friend, who was in high school, and she was like: ‘I’m a fan of Kehlani,’ but in a way that was like, ‘So I can’t be a fan of Tinashe, too.’ Then my friend posed the question, ‘Why not be a fan of both?’ It’s kind of like sport; people feel like they have to pick a side. There are hundreds of [male] rappers that all look the same, that sound the same, but if you’re a black woman, you’re either Beyoncé or Rihanna. It’s very, very strange.”
“There’s colourism involved in the black community, which is very apparent. It’s about trying to find a balance where I’m a mixed woman, and sometimes I feel like I don’t fully fit into the black community; they don’t fully accept me, even though I see myself as a black woman. That disconnect is confusing sometimes.” She finished out with: “I am what I am.”
Tinashe’s follow-up to 2014’s Aquarius, Joyride, still seems to be kept on the backburner, but check out the recent single “Flame” below and look out for more info soon!
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