Tate McRae has it.
Three years after breaking out with “You Broke Me First,” Calgary, Alberta native Tate McRae, 20, is one of pop’s most exciting artists on the rise — and has hits (“Greedy” hit the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10) and dance movement (she was a finalist at So you think you can dance in 2016) to support it. Last month she made her debut on Saturday night live. And on Friday, he will release his new album Think later.
“This has been the biggest whirlwind of my life, and honestly, the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced,” McRae says of her arrival in the mainstream. “It’s very hard for me to wrap my head around.”
Long before she hit the stage as a pop star, McRae made a name for herself as a competitive dancer, performing and placing second in So you think you can dance when she was 13 years old.
“I always thought I’d grow up to be maybe a backup dancer,” McRae says.
But after she started sharing videos of original songs she wrote in her bedroom in 2017, she landed a record deal. Her sad-girl anthem “You Broke Me First” made the top 20 of 2020; she grew her fan base with her debut album last year I thought I could fly; and now she is in her pop-princess era with the arrival of her second dance-pop album Think later, which evokes the peak of Britney Spears and thanks, next one the era of Ariana Grande.
“I kind of just want to write fun songs. I feel like I’ve created my best stuff just like, ‘I would never say this…I should say that.’ And I’ve definitely been trying to find beats that make me move,” McRae says of combining her passion for songwriting and dancing. “For the first time in my life, I can bring the two sides of my identity together and it’s so satisfying.”
McRae’s latest single, “Exes,” is a true example of that synergy. Over a trembling beat, she sings, “Kiss to my exes who don’t care about me / Kisses to the next ones who think they can live without me.” A great kiss-off, the song blew up in record time when McRae wrote and recorded it with co-writers Ryan Tedder and Tyler Spry.
“The last song we did was ‘Exes’. We wrote it in 30 minutes — finished the whole song in 60 to 90 minutes, had it fully produced and vocally tracked and everything. We sent it to the label, and they said, ‘Next single.’ It was the fastest process ever,” McRae recalls of the song. “Ryan said, ‘This would be the fastest song I’ve ever written in the history of my career.’ I have no idea what happened. It was like the Hail Mary from the album. We were finishing up the track list and said, ‘OK, let’s just go inside [the studio] literally 30 minutes — that’s it, no more,’ and we ended up writing the whole song and finishing it.”
Within two weeks of recording “Exes,” they also shot and released a music video that—thanks to tight group choreography—drew comparisons to early pop star favorites like Spears and Christina Aguilera.
“We were obviously taking inspiration from the greats, like Britney and Christina, and we really wanted to make a full dance music video,” says McRae. “I’ve dreamed of doing a fully choreographed dance music video for so long — dancing is the most prominent thing in a music video. So it’s definitely mentioned by some of my biggest idols.”
As for the comparisons to Spears, “it’s obviously an honor,” says McRae. “I mean, Britney is the queen. People will compare newer artists to things that happened in the past, so obviously it’s really cool to hear those comments.”
As her star grows brighter, McRae also works tirelessly on her craft.
“Whenever I’m out of breath on stage, I’m always like, well, f—, Beyoncé can do that — I have no excuses!” She figured out a way to run on a treadmill and sing at the same time. You watch Coachella, and she’s been dancing and singing all this time and she’s figured out a way to sound awesome and make it work,” McRae says. “It’s just part of figuring out how to bring the two together. That’s really, really hard to do. I’m constantly trying to get better.”
To that end, McRae’s live shows are electric. And she even has her own stage alter ego who comes to the fore when she takes the stage: Tatiana, who has become an inside joke among her legions of fans.
“I’m a pretty reserved Canadian guy who’s pretty shy in big groups. But I get on stage and sometimes I pass out and I’m like, ‘What the hell is going on, Boston?’ And my mom was like, ‘Whoa, where did this come from?'” McRae says. “Just a completely different side of me. She’s more combative and doesn’t care about….”
But McRae, of course, takes his career very seriously.
Tate McRae on SNL.
Will Heath/NBC via Getty
“I really suffer from impostor syndrome when I show up in places like SNLlike, ‘Why am I here?'” she says. “This is just a big dream.”
Now that she’s navigating the music industry — and Hollywood — she’s thankful to be surrounded by a supportive group of girls, including Olivia Rodrigo, whose “Bad Idea Right?” music video in which she appeared this fall.
“I feel very lucky. It’s hard to find real friends in LA, but I will say that I’ve been so impressed with how our generation now actually wants to praise other women. At least my circle of friends – me and my girls have nothing but love and support each other, and there’s no competition or jealousy,” she says.
McRae adds: “I feel like the industry is slowly turning in a way that’s less cruel and a little more supportive and loving. I feel really lucky. I have a really amazing group of women that I love so much, and I” I’m very lucky to have them together to talk about all these craziness.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education