Tinashe stopped by The Tonight Show to perform an impassioned medley of her songs “Popstar” and “Melatonin.” The singer opened the performance with an anthemic rendition of “Popstar” before amping things up with “Melatonin” alongside a group of backup dancers.
Both tracks come off Tinashe’s recent LP, Popstar, which dropped in September. She initially teased the 16-track album with “Too Easy,” which she premiered at Coachella. Popstar follows Tinashe’s album Quantum Baby, which dropped in August 2024. Quantum Baby marked part of a trilogy of albums that includes BB/Ang3l.
“I wanted to create a record that felt very confident and bold in its title, in its taking up space, in its arrival, like announcing that I’m here,” Tinashe told Rolling Stone of Popstar. “Calling the album Popstar, I felt like really claiming a spot for myself. I think that that level of confidence has also created more conversation, perhaps a little more pressure around the whole thing.”
She added, “People have a very narrow understanding of what pop means nowadays, and it’s very clean, it’s very mainstream, it’s very white, and it’s very contrived. It’s nice to question that. There are so many people outside of that binary that do what I would consider pop, and so I’d like to bring those people into the conversation.”
Tinashe will tour in support of the album next spring. The trek kicks off April 14 in Dallas and continues around North America through May 18, concluding with three nights at Shrine Expo Hall in Los Angeles.
