Review Summary: Deftly threading the needle between experimental dance music and radio-ready R&B, Tinashe comes into her own on BB/ANG3L.
In my review of Tinashe’s second major label album Joyride all the way back in 2018 (Jesus Christ), I wrote that I wished she’d been allowed to take more risks, that the flashes of interesting songwriting and experimental production had been buried between label-mandated cannon fodder pop.
Well, in the time since then, Tinashe has mercifully parted ways with RCA Records, striking out on her own and making some of the best music of her career. 2019’s
Songs for You is, like previous Tinashe releases, an eclectic mix of R&B, pop, electronic, and mid-century pop/jazz. Despite a lack of narrative focus, the songs were uniformly strong, demonstrating that Tinashe may be better suited to the role of indie auteur versus pop star. Follow-up
333 was more consistent and, thrillingly, more weird — leaning into experimental dance music,
333 saw Tinashe finally drawing out the influences that had sat at the edges of her work for her whole career.
BB/ANG3L is the record I’ve always wanted Tinashe to make. Working primarily with pathbreaking dance music producers
Machinedrum and
Nosaj Thing, Tinashe delivers a lithe, all-hits record that finally capitalizes on her strengths as a storyteller.
On
BB/ANG3L, Tinashe plays the role of the love-struck other woman, slinking through the night to consummate an illicit relationship she knows is wrong. “Treason,” one of the best songs Tinashe’s penned, starts in medias res, our heroine running red lights, headlights off, to meet a paramour. Betraying herself and her angels, she courts disaster. The track steadily gains steam, the synths and vocal harmonies soaring as her thoughts race. “Talk to Me Nice,” boasting woozy
Nosaj Thing production and a weird ear worm of a hook, is beguiling. The song’s bifurcated production is jarring on first listen, but this lends it a sinister air unlike almost anything else in R&B right now. This sinister air, of course, has thematic resonance: Tinashe here details the relationship at the core of this album’s narrative — good sex, private plans, feigned loyalty, but all in the dark of night, hidden. There's magnificent tension in the sonic picture Nashe paints here.
Then there’s “Needs.” “Needs” is the best pop song in Tinashe’s catalogue. There’s the breezy sensuality that Tinashe’s mastered, there’s the universal sentiment underlying it, and then there’s the song’s structure and length. It doesn’t overstay its welcome, it doesn’t overplay its hand. It’s perfect.
If “Talk to Me Nice” and “Needs” are Tinashe’s best efforts at bona fide pop songs, “Uh Huh” and “Gravity” are the platonic ideal versions of the kind of aqueous, sensuous R&B she’s been trafficking in since
In Case We Die. “Uh Huh” is all pillow talk, sweet post-coital nothings whispered across a midtempo bump-n-grind instrumental. “Gravity,” a
Machinedrum produced drum and bass song, is the post-nut clarity: heart and head are pitted against each other, the reality of their relationship gradually coming into focus. Tinashe has been developing a strong catalogue of dance music collabs in her time as an artist, working with
Zhu,
Snakehips, and, most notably,
Kaytranada. However, “Gravity” stands as the best argument for her as a Voice™ in Dance Music.
“None of My Business,” narratively, stands as the record’s turning point. Here, Tinashe acknowledges that she’s been lied to. She’s known from the beginning that she’s the other woman, but now she’s got to admit that she’s the one drawing this affair out. For as bad as he is for cheating, she’s the one who keeps calling him back. There’s a resignation and shame here that’s palpable, thanks in large part to an excellent vocal performance and incisive lyrics. “Tightrope” as a capstone is a moment of levity after “Business”s weight. Over a featherlight drum and bass track (again from Machinedrum), Tinashe tries to make sense of her conflicting emotions, the ebullient synths pointing towards a clarity that remains just out of reach. The track is fun despite its themes.
Clocking in at 20 minutes, it's wild how much narrative density and sonic exploration is packed into this effort. It feels like the culmination of a longer narrative arc for Tinashe, who came onto the scene as an upstart member of a doomed girl group, grew into a Janet acolyte with real pop ambitions, and has since evolved further into a genuine auteur, someone whose clear vision finally comes together on
BB/ANG3L.
