Tinashe speaks of her new hit song 'nasty' in her album ‘Quantum Baby’

Tinashe thought she might have something on her hands while making her song “Nasty,” but she wasn’t fully convinced until her industry peers began talking about it.

“I feel like I noticed the signs very early on that this track was different. I started kind of receiving messages from my peers and just hearing little things and seeing reactions from people that I really haven't seen from people in the past,” said the Pop&B star. The fact that it continued to get meme-ified and there was all over Twitter – at first started on Twitter, and then it was really TikTok. And then kind of just seeing the, I guess, snowball effect of how it's really taken over has been amazing.”

Nasty, which Peaked at No. 61 on the Billboard 100, is the lead single from her new album, “Quantum Baby” which drops Friday. The eight-track album is Tinashe’s seventh studio album overall, and she hopes it gives fans a side of her they haven’t witnessed yet.

“I think I've been really lucky, you know, since leaving my major label, going independent, being able to focus on whatever I want to make creatively. And I've really honed that process over the last three albums. And this project, ‘Quantum Baby,’ is the part two of a three-part album that I'm putting out,” said Tinashe. “I'm excited for people to hear the next one. But it has been really amazing to be in control of that creative and to really hone my sound and just kind of make whatever feels good to me in the moment.”

Tinashe burst onto the scene in 2014 with “2 On,” her huge record with Schoolboy Q. While she’s had other big songs, it wasn’t until she released “Nasty” that she found that same type of pop culture success. She says her thoughts on chasing big songs has changed throughout the years.

“When I first, you know, got in the game, ‘2 On’ on was my first single that I ever put out. So, I set the bar really high. So at that point, I was constantly trying to at least meet that, if not beat it. And there was always that sense of like, can we do this? And that was always kind of on the forefront of my mind when creating records,” she explained. “But I think I found a lot more freedom creatively and a lot more – I think I've made better records since I've stopped considering how they will perform, or a chart position or anything like that. I think I just really focus on my instincts and making something that feels good to me.”