Tate McRae, Pop in Motion

It’s no question that Tate McRae’s got stamina. Watching her pulsate back and forth in her music videos, let alone her live performances, feels like a masterclass in movement. At 21 years old, McRae has emerged as a rare breed of pop girl who believes in sweat equity: she choreographs, she writes, she runs on a treadmill while singing to train for her shows. Over Zoom, McRae is sharp, self-aware and seriously passionate about keeping pop performance alive.

If her precision on stage makes it seem like she’s been doing this all her life, it’s because she has. “I was a very psychotic kid,” she tells PAPER. “I trained 40 hours a week in dancing. I also did rhythmic gymnastics on top of that, and then I would travel on the weekends and dance more and assist at conventions.”

McRae says it with a laugh, but her devotion to the craft is no joke. By 12, she was competing on So You Think You Can Dance; Paula Abdul called her “a gift from God.” That early 2000s-era entertainment machine — the Nigel Lythgoe brand of reality TV judgment, the weekly pressure cookers of live performance — shaped her foundational sense of showmanship.

It’s easy, then, to draw a line between McRae and early-career Britney Spears: both former child stars with serious training and even more serious drive. But McRae isn’t a throwback. She’s something more self-contained, sturdier, savvier and social media-native in a way her forebears never had to be. Born and raised in Calgary, Canada, McRae didn’t have a Mickey Mouse Club. She had YouTube. And from the very beginning, her rise has been intimately entwined with the algorithm.

“My idea of the future kept shifting,” she says. “Around 15, I started getting really into pop culture and wanted to be a backup dancer. And somewhere between 14 and 16, I just felt so misunderstood. That’s when I started writing every day. It became my lifeline.” McRae’s fans have grown up with her in real-time, watching her evolve from precocious teen to bonafide arena act — not through heavily staged PR rollouts, but through phone cameras, late-night covers and diaristic posts.

This is the duality she occupies: raw but polished, accessible but untouchable, a Gen-Z star who knows how to manage her parasocial relationships without being consumed by them. “Creating and making art while seeing yourself so much on the internet is really confusing,” McRae says. “It can interrupt the flow of creating your best work.”

Skeptics once questioned whether McRae could carry the mantle of pop’s next-gen vanguard — a field increasingly shaped by virality over virtuosity. But her case has become more difficult to ignore. She’s a workhorse who’s paid her dues and made good on those childhood pop fantasies, trading training montages for sold-out arenas. “Sometimes I walk into rehearsal and get full-body chills,” she says. “Just knowing I’m going to perform for that many people… it feels like my biggest dream has come to fruition.”

When asked what kind of dessert her music would be, McRae lands on metaphor: “Some kind of chocolate layered cake,” she says. “Something that looks good, has lots of different flavors, and is a little confusing to bite into at first… but then it all makes sense at the end.”

As she embarks on the Miss Possessive world tour — her biggest to date, with stops across Europe and North America — McRae’s vision is sharper than ever. Below, she dives into pop iconography, YouTube rabbit holes and the magic of Dangerous Woman (2016).

How was South America? Was this your first time doing big arenas there?

Yeah, I actually just did all the Lollapaloozas in South America. It was absolutely surreal. I’ve never seen that many people in my life. It was just the loudest crowds I’ve ever heard, it was so cool.

I read that you embody an alter ego, Tatiana, sometimes when you perform. For these huge festivals, are there any other rituals you do to get pumped up before going on stage? Any particular songs you put on to get you in the zone?

Not any specific song. I usually listen to SZA before I go on, because I do my own glam on tour. So I’ll take two hours and do my glam peacefully. And then when I need energy, I’ll go bug the dancers, and we’ll do a little circle and hype each other up. And then I’ll say a little prayer and go on stage.

SZA before going on stage is interesting. So mellow.

Well, it’s just in the more meditative moments, when I’m doing my glam. I feel like if I get too hyped up, I would have way too much adrenaline going on.

I’m very obsessed with how you were on So You Think You Can Dance at 12 years old. The whole Nigel Lythgoe era of reality competition series. It’s very glorious and I respect that about you.

Now that I think about it, 12 is so baby. I felt like I was 22, though, when I was 12.

Really?

I’d been watching So You Think You Can Dance my whole life. So to be on it was one of my first dreams. Honestly, the same zone that I get into as a singer, I would pop into as a dancer, as well — where you just gotta shut off the fact that you’re on live television, and there’s millions of people watching and that you’re being judged. Because I don’t even think a 12-year-old brain can comprehend that, really. It was a really formative experience. Getting to experience that level of pressure at such a young age was really terrifying, but also such a blessing because it really set me up for a lot of things in life. And I felt very lucky to live in LA for a couple months and get to experience that type of life. I was living a dream when I was 12.

You really had a lot of discipline and were willing to pay your dues and be a part of that early-2000s entertainment machine. A lot of budding artists nowadays can’t say that. They don’t know what it’s like to be judged by actual judges on live TV.

Yeah. Even the fact that Paula Abdul was one of the judges. I didn’t even realize how major that was at the time.

I watched your audition and she was like, “You are a gift from God.”

Queen.

Do you ever think about iconography and leaving a legacy like the pop stars from the early 2000s? Does that mess with your head? Or do you not think about it at all?

It depends. I try to create anything that makes me feel fresh and inspired and new whenever I’m creating. As a dancer, you live a million lives. I went from being a ballerina to being hip-hop to being a contemporary dancer to doing ballroom at one point. And as a singer, it’s been fun to see how far I can take things and push things that make me feel excited. That’s the blessing of my job. Now I can take things that I’m really passionate about, and I’m able to have really incredible resources and dancers and choreographers and directors that I work with that can push me in directions I didn’t know were possible.

That’s what creates iconic things: really great people working together and being fully present and engaged on set and feeling the magic come. I strive to do something better than my last project or my last performance, and that’s the headspace I like to stay in.

Is there a pop girl era or album rollout that really affected you growing up? I know you love Ariana.

There are one-off performances of every pop girl that I’ve been obsessed with. I couldn’t just name one cycle, because I look back and watch so many different performances and videos. But I would say Ariana, because that was one of the first times… How old was I when Dangerous Woman came out? I might have been —

That was 2016.

Okay, in 2016 I would have been 12 or 13. I think that’s the first time I really started to stan people and obsess over pop music and make my first-ever music playlists on my phone. That’s why I paid so much attention to Ariana and Taylor at the time, and all the pop girls, because that’s when you get that feeling where you’re like, Oh, I can’t wait to be 17, 18, 19 and do my makeup like this, and maybe release a song like this, and roll something out like this. So I always reference Dangerous Woman because I always thought it was really incredible pop music that felt like it changed my life.

I mean, it changed my life, too. I remember when a snippet of “Into You” leaked on Twitter. I was a freshman in my dorm at NYU, and I just remember listening to it over and over again for like an hour.

Yeah, I didn’t have Twitter or anything. I just went on YouTube and sometimes Instagram. I wasn’t really allowed. But when I did see the a cappella version of Dangerous Woman on YouTube, that was formative for me. Or even when I saw “Hands to Myself” by Selena Gomez. There are certain things that stick out in my mind. Maybe it’s just a young teenage girl who sees things for the first time and is like, Wow, I really want to grow up and be like that.

We were so fed by the Disney girls in the early 2010s. I know you loved Hannah Montana. What was your relationship to consuming media at the time? You said you weren’t always allowed to go on Instagram. Were you on the internet?

Well, I was a very psychotic kid, in a sense. I trained 40 hours a week in dancing. I also did rhythmic gymnastics on top of that, and then I would travel on the weekends and dance more and assist at conventions. A lot of my childhood was spent in the studio, practicing, getting ready for competitions and not on the internet. So whenever I did watch [stuff], I’d catch Disney Channel or music videos or I’d catch pop stars on the internet. But I was really working and grinding.

What’s the most recent YouTube rabbit hole you went on?

I just went down a Beyoncé rabbit hole. I was listening to a Destiny’s Child album and then I started watching old Beyoncé performance videos. There’s this one video where her hair gets stuck in a fan and she just keeps performing like nothing happened. I mean, Beyoncé is such an icon. I don’t even know how she has the stamina to sing and dance like that. I was infatuated. I think I spent a solid four hours watching her videos.

There’s that legend of her running on a treadmill while singing live to train for her shows.

Probably. I mean, it’s such intense stamina. But yeah, I think Beyoncé was my most recent rabbit hole.

How do you keep your stamina up? Do you have a fitness routine or is dancing your full-body workout?

I work out almost every day. It’s honestly funny — I always joke about it, but I have asthma, so I have to train extra hard to make sure I’m not wheezing on stage while I’m dancing. It definitely takes a lot of cardio. I actually have tried the singing on the treadmill thing. I’ll do vocal warmups while walking fast. It’s tough, but it helps. I just try to keep my body healthy and consistent.

When you were 13 or 14, traveling for dance and even teaching — were you already thinking, I want to sing, I want to be a pop star? Or were singing and dancing still separate lanes for you?

I’ve always been super creative and ambitious. So whatever it was, I knew I was going to work my ass off to get there. But honestly, my idea of the future kept shifting. At one point, I wanted to be a ballerina in a company. Then I wanted to move to Europe and join a modern contemporary company. Around 15, I started getting really into pop culture and wanted to be a backup dancer. Then somewhere between 14 and 16, I just felt so misunderstood — maybe because I was such a loner, always dancing, barely seeing people. That’s when I started writing every day. It became my lifeline. That’s when singing clicked and once I started to build a fanbase, I thought, Maybe this is something I could really try and reach for.

Does being a pop star in the age of the algorithm affect you at all? What’s your relationship to fandom and the internet now?

It’s such a love-hate thing because I started on the internet. My fans have grown with me, have stuck by my side and been so loyal since I was 13. They’ve watched me change from being a little nerd in my bedroom writing on my piano to now fulfilling my dreams of performing in arenas. That’s a really crazy arc to follow, so I feel beyond grateful that they’re with me, because without them, I wouldn’t be anything. So there’s that part of the internet that I have the most love for and gratitude for.

But then, creating and writing and making art while seeing yourself so much on the internet is also really confusing, and it can sometimes interrupt the flow of creating your best work. So you do have to keep that boundary for your own sanity — staying off the internet and not looking at opinions of yourself. And then also, keeping your fans close, too, because I cherish them so much.

Yeah, it’s a level of transparency that must be a give-and-take. Fans now have this power that has transformed and shapeshifted the music industry. But that’s also why people feel more connected to you.

I think being a 21-year-old is annoying enough. I feel so confused some days. Bouncing from trying to be an adult to trying to feel confident, trying to feel sure of yourself and also learning who you are and what your tastes are and how to navigate through this industry. It is hard, because looking at yourself online that much isn’t a normal thing for the brain to comprehend. It can be a little stressful. I always feel my best when I’m writing in the studio, when I’m with my dancers and leading with kindness and compassion and feeling like a good person. That always keeps me stable and grounded. Making sure that you know your reality outside of the internet feels stable and good.

I saw that you bought a place in New York. What makes you feel connected to the city?

I moved out to LA when I was 17 years old, so I’ve been living here for five years now, and New York just makes me feel alive. It makes me feel inspired and excited. I love it. It’s the first place I’ve ever bought, so it’s cool.

What’s your favorite place to eat in New York?

This might be basic, but the breakfast spot Sadelle’s is my absolute favorite.

You’re embarking on your first big worldwide arena tour. Were there any arena tours or concerts you saw growing up that shaped you?

I actually didn’t go to a lot of concerts in my life. I think I’ve only been to eight or nine concerts. I remember the first arena tour I ever saw was Justin Bieber’s Purpose world tour, and that was my first concert. From that day, my biggest dream ever was to headline an arena. So this year is pretty surreal for me. Some days, I walk into rehearsal and get full-body chills just knowing that I’m going to perform for that many people. It feels like my biggest dream has come to fruition, which is such a blessing. I feel so, so excited and I literally cannot wait to get on the road.

Did you channel Tatiana on this cover shoot?

100%. The second I snap into a character, I am instantly way more confident. This shoot was definitely more regal and elegant, and it was so fun because we got to tell a story throughout all the shots, which is rare on magazine shoots. It was so fun. We were in this big mansion that was so detailed and beautiful. It was a really cool day, I got to turn into a different person.

Where’s your mind at now? Are there any movies or books that are personally inspiring you?

As of right now, I’ve just been locked into creating this show. I like to have my hand in every aspect of the show, from the visuals to the lighting to the references. Then obviously I have to learn all the choreography for it. As a writer, it’s only natural for me to always be writing little poems every day, or little parts of songs. I think this is the most fun part, when you finish an album and the pressure is finally released and you get to find all this new music. Because sometimes when you’re in the creation process, music can be a little stressful to listen to, and afterwards, it’s such a refreshing feeling hearing music again. It just gives you so much dopamine again. I’m in that phase where I just am enjoying listening to music and taking my time and trying to be as present as possible.

What did you think of the new Ariana? Eternal Sunshine deluxe.

I thought it was unbelievable. She nailed it once again. I mean, she’s an alien.

If your music was a dessert, what would it be?

That’s a hard question. I was about to say panna cotta, but I don’t even know what the fuck a panna cotta is. Okay, I just looked it up. Definitely not panna cotta. I’d say maybe some kind of chocolate layered cake — something that looks good, has lots of different flavors, and is a little confusing to bite into at first, but then it all makes sense at the end.

Perfect answer. Thank you for keeping pop alive.