Tinashe’s BB/ANG3L is an exciting new step for the cult R&B star

Particularly the years after her very public label fallout, there’s been a freedom in her music that wasn’t always allowed with RCA. 2019’s smooth Songs For You and 2021’s jumpy, varied 333, while still feeling like fully put-together projects, provided ample jumping-off points to an elevated sound. BB/ANG3L, the singer’s fifth album, might just be the strongest foot forward.

Arriving last Friday with only seven tracks, BB/ANG3L was bemoaned by fans as basically an EP, which is valid, but one that makes the most out of its runtime. “Treason,” the opening track, starts with a jangly arrangement of synths before crescendoing in energy. “Hate myself for treason,” she self-admonishes, before going back to a previous partner for one night. That may be the same person on “Tightrope,” where her whispered, airy vocals sing of nights driving around Los Angeles with a partner before their relationship turned sour. “Not in my right mind,” she admits, over the frenetic and tight breakbeat instrumental – a refreshing sound, even after records by Kelela and NewJeans earlier this year incorporated it.

The atmospheric lead single “Talk To Me Nice” is also new ground for Tinashe, a mesmerizing track interspersed with vocal chops and a driving bassline. She’s self-sufficient, grounded in her own person – “This a feeling that money can’t buy / Couldn’t be fake if I tried” – but still is open to others coming to appreciate her and her merit. “Come get me laid, sing me lullabies,” she sings, “Come drive me crazy ‘fore I catch a flight.” “Gravity,” too, like “Tightrope,” uses its enigmatic vocal performance to discuss indecision: “I’ve been drowning in my dreams again,” she says, “I can’t decide if I trust my heart or trust my eyes.” But its hypnotic end, her cries to pull her back down to earth, makes for a dreamy finish.

Even on tracks where she isn’t necessarily inventing anything new, playing around in contemporary sets of R&B and trap, there’s still a spark that makes them hard-to-miss. “Needs” is one of those tracks, a flirty number whose food references were inspired by a Samantha storyline in Sex and the City. “Uh Huh” is a slower effort, whose chorus is composed of that onomatopoeia, but offers commentary on a developing, deepening relationship. “I never expected this is how it would go,” she says, “It was just for the plot, but baby, I’m back for more.”

At only seven tracks, I have to join in the crowds that are hoping this is part 1 of a larger project, or at the very least, indicative of a move towards the breakbeat, electronic sounds she flaunted with here. Is BB/ANG3L teaser or torture? A little bit of both, but as R&B’s most solid underground hitmaker, it’s certain Tinashe will create something just as fun and down-to-earth soon to come.