The festival kicked off with a set from UNIIQU3, a leading DJ, producer and vocalist in Jersey club music. Acting as his MC in the purest sense, his UNIIQU3 moves the crowd to a bouncy percolation mix of deep bass and the genre’s trademark bed-squeak samples. I begged. She concluded the set with her new “affirmation song”, “Price Going Up,” saying that in 2024, “everything is going up: our confidence, our worth, and our prices.” he told the audience.
Wearing neutral tones and a bubble coat, Tinashe took to the stage around 9 p.m. Throughout the hour-plus set that followed, she lacked confidence. Probably because she has spent much of her life on stage. After she spent her teens in her group Girls, she began her solo career in 2011 and she has had a steady presence on playlists ever since.
Supported by a quartet of male dancers, Tinashe showed off the graceful movements she honed before the start of her career, drawing loud cheers from the audience with every twirl and sway of her hips. Occasionally, she would perform on her riser in front of screens showing geometry, liquid metal, and herself, much to the delight of those behind her.
Tinashe has built a musical world through six albums that survey the past decade’s fusion of rap-infused R&B and underground electronic music. In her various works, her breathy melodies and subtle harmonies follow the Jackson lineage of Aaliyah and Janet at their best. However, as with any experiment, not all hypotheses will be proven correct. Sometimes the haze of her work sinks into the mud, and Tinashe’s gentle voice becomes trapped like a dinosaur in a pit of tar.
Featuring more than 20 songs, the career-spanning set ranges from the dreamy, lava-lamp R&B of “Talk to Me Nice” to kiss-offs like “Throw a Fit,” dictated by mood rings. The atmosphere suddenly changed. Her voice sounds like the Veruca Salt of the rap game (Miss Nash, if you’re mean). Midway through her set, she explored how her own voice and vision combine, whether it’s producer Kaytranada’s funky grooves (“The Worst in Me,” “Unconditional”) or the ’90s vibe. He showed how powerful he is. Fairy tale “Our Story”.
When Tinashe said it was her birthday, the staff brought out a cake and the audience sang “Happy Birthday” with her. As her party favor, she performed her breakthrough, and still her biggest hit, “2 On.” This song is a flirtatious song that still holds up even 10 years later. She ended the night with a similar song, “All Hands on Deck,” but the lyrics, “Kiss the old me goodbye, she died and left,” left listeners wondering: which Tinashe Like has died and gone and what will the next reincarnation sound like?