When Tate McRae launched her THINK LATER era in September 2023, she was already a bona fide pop superstar in the making. She scored a multi-platinum viral hit in 2020 with her breakthrough single, "you broke me first," and further proved her pop prowess in 2022 with her debut album, I Used To Think I Could Fly. But as soon as she released "greedy," the lead single for THINK LATER, it was clear McRae was on a different trajectory.
Within a matter of months, "greedy" climbed to No. 1 on Top 40 radio and reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, her biggest chart hit to date as of press time. And in the year since "greedy"'s release — which McRae commemorated on its Sept. 15 anniversary — the Canadian singer/songwriter has made her "Saturday Night Live" debut, won Artist and Single Of The Year at the 2024 JUNO Awards, and racked up more than 3 billion streams worldwide on THINK LATER alone. Safe to say, she's now one of pop's young queens.
Among her latest achievements is headlining New York City's famed Madison Square Garden, where she wrapped the North American leg of her THINK LATER TOUR on Aug. 22. And though she still has tour stretches in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and South America through next March, McRae has already kicked off her next chapter.
On Sept. 12, the singer released "It's ok I'm ok," an empowering, punchy pop and R&B-infused track where McRae finds freedom after leaving her ex. Like the visual for "greedy," the song's accompanying music video sees McRae show off her years as a professional dancer — and pay homage to her idols Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera — as she confidently struts around the streets of New York City.
"I look back at THINK LATER and compare it to the album I'm currently working on, and it feels like that was so 20-year-old me," McRae, who turned 21 on July 1, tells GRAMMY.com. "It's exactly how I felt at that time... [but] all the music I'm creating right now definitely feels like a fierce era for me."
In the midst of touring and working on her next project, McRae sat down with GRAMMY.com to reflect on how the past year changed her life. In her own words, the pop star details some of the biggest moments, from performing on SNL to headlining MSG.
Launching To Superstardom With "greedy"
Last year, my creative director and I began doing a lot of soul searching to figure out who I wanted to be as an artist, what the next era would look like, and the kind of imprint I wanted to make. I felt really lost as a 20-year-old and, at the time, I knew I wanted to do pop music and dance, and to try to bring back the kind of music videos I fell in love with when I was younger.
I was ready for a new era and time of music. I wanted something a little more lighthearted and taking myself a little less seriously.
"greedy" was one of the songs on THINK LATER that made me reach out of my comfort zone. I was writing a lot of songs in the midtempo pop range, which is very much my comfort zone, and my producer Ryan [Tedder] told me I need to write an upbeat song. I said my inspirations are Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous Girl" and Britney Spears, and then we wrote "greedy."
I thought it was the worst song I've ever heard in my life because my mind was so closed off in that session that I couldn't see the beauty of it. That happened a lot of times [with THINK LATER]. "Hurt My Feelings," which is now one of my favorite songs to perform, was so pop when we wrote it. I thought it was way too pop for me, but I just had to step outside of my body and my stubborn artist thinking and put myself in other people's perspectives.
I don't think you ever know why songs do what they do or what fans grab onto. It's always interesting, because you're like, How is this happening? Like, a lot of the numbers, when you're going through it, don't usually feel real. I think it's hard for the human brain to process numbers that big.
Performing on "Saturday Night Live" was a goal of mine, I just didn't think it was going to happen that soon. I remember my manager called me and I just started bawling, because that's one of those moments you dream about since you're a little kid. You never think it's going to happen, and then it does, and you're crying because you're so happy.
I've also never been that nervous in my entire life! Walking into that building, being on that stage, and being in an area with so much history… All of it felt very surreal. I remember when I got there I thought, I have to take in every single inch of every single wall and make sure I remember every detail of this place. These are moments in my life that I'm going to cherish forever and remember.
I had a really fun cast; they are so nice and accepting. Jason Momoa was the one hosting my episode, and he was so sweet to me. I was nervous doing the liners and he was talking to me to make sure I was okay.
When I performed "greedy," a huge chunk of the cast and Jason came from backstage and their makeup chairs to stand at the back of the room to watch me. I thought about how cool it was to be surrounded by such supportive people who I admire so much. They were all dancing in the back [to "greedy"] and filming themselves, and they sent me a video of it.
Songwriting is such an interesting thing because it's like watching yourself growing up through words. You're watching yourself figure out relationships and how you deal with your emotions as a 17, 18, 19, 20, and now 21-year-old girl. It feels like a capsule.
Humans are never perfect and their ways of thinking are all over the place. Some years, you're going to react to things better. Other years, you're going to react to things worse. My job is just to tell the story as truthfully as possible and tell the thing that I first felt.
Sometimes I'll look back at songs and I can't believe that was my way of thinking, or I can't believe I was so emotional back then. I think it's such a beautiful thing that I'm going to look back on in 30 years and see how much I evolved as a person. This outlet for me is so brutally honest and people are actually, in real time, watching me figure out my life.
Writing THINK LATER, I learned so much from Ryan Tedder and Amy Allen every single day. I feel like they both have perfected how to write a pop song. We work really well together. I have a very different perspective than they do on my life and things that I want to talk about, but it's a really collaborative effort and we push each other in different ways. I want to be as honest as possible with my fans and tell stories through my music. That's the whole point, and it's therapeutic for me.
It's been such a blessing to work with such incredible songwriters over the past two years. Writing my next album has been so fun to just try and explore different worlds and step into things that would usually make me feel out of my comfort zone.
Headlining A Sold-Out Global Tour
I can't even watch my performances from two years ago. It's astonishing just how much my show has changed. It's cool to watch me slowly incorporate my years and years of dancing and actually bring my vision into something on stage.
The evolution from two years ago is not even the same person. Even doing festival shows, like performing at Lollapalooza, is always pretty shocking when I see [how] the crowd has grown.
This tour in particular has been the most life-changing. At the end of this leg, I wasn't even sick of playing shows — which is crazy because we played over 50!
Getting to do what I love is such a dream of mine that it doesn't even feel real. Moments on this tour, like playing Toronto, which is 17,000 people, or Madison Square Garden, which is 19,500, those are the times when I think, This is what I do it all for. I've performed in those 500 capacity rooms and now, getting to this point, I'm so much more grateful because I can't believe people are actually there for me. It's a shocking thing that your body can't even process.
At Madison Square Garden, we had so many surprises planned and I'm pretty sure I just blacked out for most of it. I performed a new song, I brought out a special guest [The Kid LAROI], and my friend Jake Shane did a little bit with me while I was on stage.
There were so many parts of that show that we planned, all I could think was, Don't mess it up! Just get through this show! Once it was over and we got to the last song, I just remember thinking how many people were there — and they were all there for me.
It means the world to me to be called a rising star. There are so many incredible women in the industry that I look up to, and so many of them are, luckily, my peers and friends that I'm able to talk to and vent to about very similar experiences.
I remember watching all of the pop girls when I was younger and thinking, That's what a pop star is. It felt so unattainable and far away. Then you meet and talk to all these girls who are in the scene right now, like Chappell Roan, Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and Gracie Abrams, and they are absolutely dominating.
Most of the girls I talk to who are artists and my peers are some of the coolest girls I've ever met, and I feel like we all have our own different lanes in this industry. It doesn't feel as competitive as it might've used to be. It feels super supportive and exciting, and it's really cool to watch other girls dominate. I feel like we're in a time right now where women are ruling the world, so it's cool to be a part of that process and see people actually appreciate us and realize how special women in music really are.
Once you finish an album, you're so proud of it. But then the number one thing I do is take apart everything I've done and the things that I can improve on next time. I think that's just me wanting to beat myself at the last song or performance.
The next album is coming along, which is a crazy thing to say. All the music I'm creating right now definitely feels like a fierce era for me; a lot of it is inspired by performing. Since touring, it feels like I've completely found another identity that was somewhere inside of me. I always say that there is Tate, and my alter ego, Tatiana, takes over when I'm performing. As soon as I get on stage, I feel like I fully become that person. A lot of these new songs are not how I would talk in real life, but I wanted to extend this fierce, confident girl power identity of Tatiana and have that be the starter of this cycle.
Visually, it's so important for me to create a world and have all the pieces connect together to the album. Whenever I have an album, I need to have some sort of life epiphany. I hope that all of that comes together and the pieces really feel satisfying when they fit together.
I'm excited to translate that feeling to touring and performing because that's when I really feel the album for the first time. I don't know what color this era will be. THINK LATER was definitely blues, blacks, whites and greys. We'll have to see what this new era unfolds into.