Tinashe: Quantum Baby – playful, featherlight 90s-trap fusion

TikTok remains a predictably unpredictable cultural randomiser. The latest career beneficiary of its supercharger fairy dust is US R&B singer Tinashe – more than a decade in the game – whose recent track Nasty went viral when a fan paired it with a reel of a bespectacled British man hip-swivelling to soca. There’s a whiff of vindication here. In 2019, the genre-straddling but unhappy singer left her major label after a protracted battle to release 2018’s Joyride. (Tinashe’s last albums have been independently or self-released.)
Quantum Baby’s title chimes with the unpredictable nature of both subatomic particles and social media blessings. Its contents, though, are pretty reliable, if a little lower-key than its standout, Nasty, advertises. Like its predecessor, BB/Ang3l (2023, seven tracks), Quantum Baby is short (eight tracks) and simultaneously playful, featherlight and nagging, a fusion of 90s signifiers with modern-era trap beats and silvery production choices.
No Broke Boys is Quantum’s most obvious Nasty bedfellow, with a tough-girl sing-song chorus. Most other tracks slink their way to the low-lit bedroom (When I Get You Alone). The restless Getting No Sleep, though, is the most emblematic of this cult R&B creator: it’s electronic pop, with R&B attitude and a shuffle of drum’n’bass; the video nods to how Tinashe put self-love first.