“Needs” serves as the second single to Tinashe’s upcoming tenth studio album BB/ANG3L. Tinashe described the R&B track as “flirty and sexy and cute,” but in an intimate kind of way. “Hands on my knees / They ain’t never seen moves like these (Mm-mm) / Nice and clean / A1 body, but I talk real mean (So mean) / He’s simpin’ / Said, “Lord, please, forgive me”, oh / Said, “I don’t like beggin’, but I’m on my knees”,” she sings, her smooth voice lending the song a cheeky air.
“I’m super pumped up about this release. I think “Needs” is a very fun song. It definitely stands out from the rest of the record to me, sonically,” Tinashe says of the laid-back R&B pop track. While the album’s lead single “Talk To Me” had a more serious tone and vibe, “Needs” is like the fun little sister that doesn’t want to be taken seriously, but still leaves an indelible mark on listeners.
For this new era, Tinashe is aiming for a more stripped-down and personal approach to the record and she’s accomplishing this not only with the songs but with the accompanying videos.
In the music video, Tinashe and her friends dance around an empty grocery store having fun. “We wanted it to have that playful, reckless energy,” she said of the music video that saw her twerking in front of abandoned cash registers and wearing nothing but cold turkey cuts. Being covered with meat was a brave move as the singer confessed that it made her smell bad and that she was very disgusted by it. However, she isn’t regretting the move. It got the message she wanted to portray across.
As for the location, the lines “Had a bonanza / Peaches, banana” made it a no-brainer for the singer to pick a real-life grocery store over a studio shoot for the video.
“So there’s also a line about my body being a buffet. That instantly made me think of being in a deli buffet as a display, and reminded me of Sex and the City when Samantha puts all the sushi on her body. That was the reference that I wanted,” she told Dazed. “I was thinking of locations where we could shoot and I wanted it to be some type of mundane space – I didn’t want it to be a studio or anything like that. I wanted it to feel like real life, because a lot of this era is really about getting to know me and feeling like there’s intimacy there. So I wanted it to feel like an intimate location, someplace that everyone knows and that we visit all the time as a part of our day-to-day.”
