Joyride

## ***Joyride***Studio album by Tinashe

### Producer(s)

VariousA1, Alexander Kronlund, Amanda Ghost, BLWYRMND, Brilliance, Compass, Dre Moon, Felix Snow, Hit-Boy, Hitmaka, J. White Did It, Lukas “Lulou” Loules, Mario Luciano, Mark Ralph, Reckless, Ritz Reynolds, Sir Nolan, Soundz, StarGate, The-Dream, Tinashe, T-Minus, Tricky Stewart & Wavy

## Singles

1. "No Drama"
Released: January 18, 2018
2. "Faded Love"
Released: February 12, 2018
3. "Me So Bad"
Released: March 30, 2018

***Joyride*** is the third studio album and seventh overall project by American singer Tinashe. It was released through RCA Records on April 13, 2018. The album features guest appearances from Offset, Ty Dolla Sign, French Montana, Little Dragon, and Future. The album also features production by Stargate, Dre Moon, Hit-Boy, T-Minus, and others.

The album received generally positive reviews from music critics, most of whom praised the album's composition and themes; however, some criticized it for it not being cohesive like Tinashe's previous studio albums. The album debuted at number 58 on the US *Billboard* 200, selling 9,800 album-equivalent units, of which 4,710 came from pure sales.

The album was supported by three singles: "No Drama" featuring Offset, "Faded Love" featuring Future, and "Me So Bad" featuring French Montana and Ty Dolla Sign.

## Background

On September 2, 2015, Tinashe released a teaser for *Joyride* on YouTube. On September 9, Tinashe leaked the buzz single "Party Favors" featuring rapper Young Thug as a way to get the ball rolling on her label's part. On October 2, 2015, Tinashe released another song, "Player" featuring Chris Brown, as the first intended lead single of the album. On October 21, 2015, Tinashe was featured on British electronic duo Snakeships' track "All My Friends", which reached the top 20 in five countries. A few weeks later, on November 17, Tinashe held a breakfast listening party for *Joyride* at the Sony Club in New York City, which was attended by reporters and various other members of the music industry. At this event, she played at least one song that wound up on the final version of *Joyride*: the album's closing track, "Fires and Flames." Two other songs played that day — "Fearless" and the Max Martin-produced "Prisoner" — have not been released.

After a few months without releasing any new music, Tinashe released a new intended lead single for the project, entitled "Superlove". The song was released on July 15, 2016 and the music video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis, debuted on August 12, 2016 on MTV's Snapchat to rave reviews. The video on YouTube reached one million views in just a day and a half. On September 15, 2016, with a MTV Wonderland performance, Tinashe released "Company" as the album's intended second single. However, this ended up being the first and only single off her 2016 album *Nightride*. Perhaps conceived of as a holdover until *Joyride* was ready to be released, *Nightride* featured many of the songs that were supposed to be on the original version of *Joyride*, including "Sacrifices", "Soul Glitch", "Ghetto Boy" and "Touch Pass" (which she initially premiered at *Joyride'*s November 2015 listening party and performed on the Joyride World Tour in early 2016). The promo singles "Ride of Your Life" and "Party Favors" (without Young Thug) were also included on *Nightride*.

On March 16, 2017, Tinashe released yet another intended lead single for *Joyride*, which was also initially premiered at *Joyride'*s November 2015 listening party, "Flame". In a March 30, 2018 interview, Tinashe claimed that the release of "Flame" as a lead single was her record label's idea, saying: "I wasn’t forced, but it was one of these situations where it was like 'Okay, I will trust you guys and this is what you believe is the best decision so I'm going to get behind it', because that's more advantageous than to sabotage my own songs... And when that wasn't necessarily successful, I realized that it was my turn to get back into the driver's seat as far as curating every move I made from there on out." After continuing to work on the album through the summer of 2017, Tinashe announced the release of three new singles from *Joyride* on January 12, 2018. "No Drama" featuring Offset was released as the first single on January 18, 2018, with an accompanied music video directed by Sasha Samsonova. "Faded Love" featuring Future was released the following month, on February 12. A vertical video was released via Spotify on February 16, and on YouTube three days later.

On March 16, 2018, Tinashe finally revealed the *Joyride* artwork on her Instagram and announced the album would be released on April 13, 2018. On March 30, 2018, the third single "Me So Bad", featuring Ty Dolla Sign and French Montana, was released along with a Sahsa Samsonova-directed music video. With this release came the digital pre-order for *Joyride*. On April 25, 2018, a special edition of *Joyride* was released exclusively in Japan, which includes the first three original intended singles ("Player", "Superlove", and "Flame") as bonus tracks, as well as new track "L-O-V-E". The version of "Player" present on this edition features AK-69 instead of Chris Brown.

## Writing and recording

The writing and recording for the album went through several phases. In late January 2015, Tinashe was reported to be working with writers and producers from Prescription Songs (Cirkut, Ammo, Rock City, Jakob Kasher, Chloe Angelides), Max Martin and Taylor Parks on the album. After months of silence after the release of the album's then-latest lead single "Flame", Tinashe on July 11, 2017, confirmed that she was still working on her new album with producers Mike Will Made It, TM88, Metro Boomin, Diplo, Boi-1da, Charlie Handsome and others.

In an April 5, 2018 article in *Vulture*, Tinashe stated: "Once I brought in producers and writers, we were in there every day being creative... We set the vibe, had Taco Tuesday parties. That was a huge turning point for me. Once that summer happened, I regained a huge sense of confidence and purpose: 'Okay, I'm doing this. I really made this happen. I’m gonna make my best music ever.' That's what we did." In this *Vulture* article, Tinashe admitted that "three [different] versions of this album exist" and that there "are probably 200 songs" total that were recorded over the course of a three-year period.

## References

1. ↑ "Tinashe's New Album Joyride Is Finally Coming Out Next Month" - *Stereogum.*
2. ↑ "Tinashe Unveils 'Joyride' Album Release Date" - *Billboard.*
3. ↑ "Tinashe - Joyride" - *Discogs.*
4. ↑ "Billboard 200: Tinashe's 'Joyride' Sells Less Than 5,000 First Week / Misses Top 50" - *That Grape Juice.*
5. ↑ "Tinashe To Drop Three New Songs: 'No Drama,' 'Me So Bad' & 'Faded Love' - iHeartRadio" - *iHeartRadio.*

Template:Joyride