Last Wednesday (September 13), beloved R&B star Tinashe visited The Zach Sang Show for an interview, fresh off the release of her September 8 studio album BB/ANG3L. During the coversation, though, Sing asked Tinashe about questionable collaborations she’d done in the past such as R. Kelly and Chris Brown, likely alluding to the crimes of abuse both have committed.
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In response to this, Tinashe first addressed the R. Kelly collaboration, which came in the form of Kelly’s 2015 song “Let’s Be Real Now.”
“I literally block out that R. Kelly song from my mind. I forget that it even exists,” she told Sang. “That is so embarrassing. That is so unreal that I even have a song with R. Kelly. That’s so embarrassing. I was so young, too, which is crazy because I feel like I did that song when I just signed to that label… I was probably like 20… That was crazy.”
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Then, when touching on her song with Brown, which was titled “Player” and released in 2015, Tinashe once again noted that her former label influenced the decision. Signed to RCA Records from 2012-19, the Kentucky-bred singer explained how she had little control over working with Brown, which she felt never made sense in the first place.
“You lack a lot of control in that situation. And especially when it comes to singles, like the song with Chris — that was a song that we all wanted to be this big moment, this big single,” she said. “So I feel like in [the label’s] mind, they were like, ‘You need the support.’ And he was like their biggest artist that they had on rhythmic radio at the time. And to me, I was like, ‘Well this is a pop song. So I really don’t feel like we should put Chris on it. That doesn’t compute to me.’ But I don’t know!”
Soon after this clip from the Sang interview circulated on the internet, it finally landed on Brown’s social media feed. Responding with an unforgiving pettiness, Brown posted multiple comments insulting Tinashe’s career and questioning her relevancy.
“NAME 5 TINASHE songs or die… EVERYBODY DEAD,” he wrote in one reply.
“She full of dat evil. Shawty career is nonexistent,” Brown added in another. “What’s more embarrassing is that she worked with all these people and not one us could save her career.”
Tinashe’s new project is her first in over two years, following up her August 2021 LP 333. Including a concise track list with only seven songs, BB/ANG3L features its two promotional singles “Needs” and “Talk To Me Nice.”
Check out her interview with Zach Sang below.
Photo by Timothy Norris/WireImage
