After burning down the internet today with a Terry Richardson photo shoot for GQ that included a Travis Scott crotch-grab, Tinashe decided to redirect our attention to her music. Thank God. While Joyride has been endlessly delayed — we did get Nightride as a holdover, I know — this new track is the best signifier we’ve gotten that the delay might signal something good for the R&B singer. She said as much in her GQ interview:
“The good thing that fans should be excited about is that the album is just getting better and better,” she told the magazine. “It’s not sitting in limbo, it’s being improved upon and growing all the time.”
It’s true, that is a good thing, and while she hasn’t officially announced that “Flame” will be on Joyrdie, it seems to be a pretty good indication that her new album is going in a poppier direction than, say “2 On.” From the sounds of “Flame,” that’s a good thing though — Tinashe can show off her range on the slow-burning song about pining over an ex-lover, and even though it’s slow, the song incorporates the slinkiness we’ve come to associate with her tracks.
She teased the song on Insta before dropping it tonight:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BRobfsNjdih/
I think that means we can expect a candlelit music video coming very soon.
