Tinashe chatted with Billboard on the red carpet of Billboard's 2023 R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players & Live.
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00:00 - Hi, my name is Michael, I'm from Compton,
00:02 from Centennial High School,
00:03 and on behalf of Billboard and Save the Music,
00:06 I would like to ask you a few questions.
00:07 - Absolutely.
00:08 - And I'm here with?
00:09 - I'm Tinashe.
00:10 - So I know you released a new song, Talk to Me Nice.
00:14 - Yes.
00:15 - How, like, what inspired you,
00:18 or how did you come up with wanting to take out that song?
00:22 - I really felt that I wanted to create something
00:25 that kind of felt like it could blend different genres.
00:28 I took a lot of inspiration from electronic music
00:31 and blended it with a lot of hip hop elements,
00:32 which I really love.
00:33 I worked with No Saj Thing on this one,
00:36 which I really love working with him.
00:37 He's a really great collaborator,
00:39 and so I think it came out really nicely,
00:40 and my core fans are really gonna love it.
00:43 - That's great.
00:44 And for somebody that's trying to,
00:47 for a kid that's trying to get into the music industry,
00:49 what would you say?
00:50 - My biggest piece of advice would be
00:53 to have a really strong sense of self,
00:55 because there's gonna be a lot of opinions,
00:57 a lot of people are gonna tell you,
00:58 you know, you should do this, you should do that,
01:00 but I think when you're authentic to who you are
01:02 and what you wanna do,
01:03 that's when you really break through,
01:04 so definitely have a strong sense of what you wanna do,
01:06 and also don't take no for an answer.
01:08 Don't let anybody tell you, you know, like, you can't do it.
01:11 All that it takes is, like, hard work, perseverance,
01:13 and, like, a little bit of luck, maybe.
01:15 - That's great.
01:17 What does hip hop mean to you?
01:20 - Hip hop, I mean, hip hop is one of my favorite genres,
01:23 probably my favorite genre.
01:25 I think it encompasses so many of the things that I love,
01:28 about culture, about black culture,
01:29 about music, about dance,
01:31 so I'm just really excited to be able
01:32 to celebrate hip hop this month.
01:34 - And for our final question,
01:37 who was your favorite hip hop artist from the past 50 years?
01:42 - Oh my gosh, that's such a hard question.
01:44 There are so many amazing ones, that's nearly impossible.
01:47 I don't think I can decide.
01:53 Okay, I'm gonna have to give it to the ladies.
01:57 I'm gonna give it to Missy Elliott.
01:58 - Okay.
02:00 - I love Missy.
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