How Tate McRae Found Her Way

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This story is part of the 2025 TIME100 Next. Read Dakota Johnson’s tribute to Tate McRae here.

For Tate McRae, a typical night in 2025 involves performing for huge crowds – tens of thousands of excited fans – in arenas globally. Surrounded by dancers, the 22-year-old from Calgary moves gracefully across the stage as bright, flashing lights sync with powerful pop music. She dramatically swings her long hair and contorts her body into amazing positions, all while performing with the confidence and skill of a pop star who’s been doing this for years.

However, when the lights go out and she closes her eyes to sleep, the images in her mind aren’t pleasant. McRae explains she doesn’t experience dreams, only nightmares. These aren’t related to performance anxieties like forgetting lines or losing her voice. nstead, when she’s asleep, her subconscious creates frightening scenes, such as visions of “a massive spider crawling on my wall coming to attack me.”

Despite the upbeat and assured sound of her music, McRae’s lyrics explore a deeply personal and troubled inner life. Even as a young girl, at the age of eight, she was already expressing her frustrations through poetry and what she describes as “dark and twisted” stories. A common thread in these stories was a girl struggling with internal conflict, who would always realize it was just a dream. “That was how I ended every story,” she explains. “My teachers actually enjoyed them.”

The contrast-being afraid when the lights are off, but confident when they’re on-is central to what makes McRae so captivating. Now 22 years old, the dancer who became a songwriter puts a lot of energy into making polished, powerful pop music. She’s created a large and devoted fanbase who connect with her willingness to embrace both sides of herself.

Her impact is clear: she has 8 million followers on Instagram, a little over 13 million on TikTok, and almost 55 million monthly listeners on Spotify. This puts her in the same league as global stars like Beyoncé (56 million) and up-and-coming artists like Alex Warren (54 million). Her most popular song, “Greedy,” has surpassed one billion streams across all platforms. It’s a huge achievement, and demonstrates her widespread appeal.

What really struck me, though, is how she’s built a career for the long haul. In today’s music world, where there isn’t one single dominating sound, McRae has cleverly created a consistent forward motion that isn’t reliant on just one huge song. It’s built gradually – one show at a time, one social media post at a time – creating real staying power, and it’s all based on a remarkably genuine connection with her fans – who she lovingly calls “Tater Tots”. She’s not chasing fleeting viral moments; she’s building something that feels truly sustainable. This isn’t just about hits; it’s about a relationship.

She explains, “It’s so strange that I’m much less afraid performing for 20,000 people than I am when I’m alone in a small room.” She adds, “I actually feel safe on stage, like it’s my chance to really express myself and go as far as I want with my performance.”

For any pop singer starting out, performing in arenas packed with fans is a dream come true, and that includes McRae. However, away from the stage, she describes herself as a very shy person. When she’s not touring, she usually spends her evenings at home (or, realistically, in a hotel room) relaxing with a face mask, sketching, and watching films like The Shawshank Redemption. She maintains a close-knit group of friends – including fellow pop star Olivia Rodrigo and actress Iris Apatow – and is deeply spiritual. Originally from elsewhere, she finds the most peace at a Malibu beach at night, after the crowds have gone home. She also makes an effort to stay off social media as much as possible. “I think people are often surprised when they meet me because there’s a difference between how I appear publicly and who I really am,” McRae explains while having breakfast (eggs and an iced matcha latte with almond milk) at her go-to cafe in West Hollywood.

When discussing what inspires her music, McRae mentions several artists, such as Lana Del Rey, SZA, Frank Ocean, and Fleetwood Mac. “It’s difficult to say exactly,” she explains, “because I enjoy all kinds of music.” She recalls that growing up, her parents played lyric-focused acoustic songs, and she was exposed to classical music during ballet classes in middle school. Later, she developed an interest in country music and its storytelling aspect. “It really just varies depending on my mood,” she adds.

As someone who loves watching performers, I keep seeing comparisons between Tate McRae and Britney Spears, and honestly, I get it. McRae is a fantastic dancer – she really commands your attention – and her style is very much that early 2000s, super polished Y2K vibe. She doesn’t shy away from the connection either. At the 2024 MTV VMAs, she actually recreated Britney’s iconic black lace Dolce & Gabbana minidress from the 2001 show! What’s even cooler is that Spears herself interviewed McRae for V Magazine this year – a big deal considering how much Britney has avoided the media lately. McRae says, “She’s such an icon.” She couldn’t believe Britney agreed to the interview, but apparently she loved McRae’s song ‘You Broke Me First.’ McRae told me they were just hoping for the best, and it was amazing to learn that Spears had been watching all of their performances and listening to their songs.

Similar to Britney Spears, Tate McRae was a natural performer from a young age. She initially trained with her mother, who was a dance instructor, starting at age 4. When she was 6, her grandfather gifted her a piano, and she quickly taught herself how to play chords. She also began taking singing lessons and writing her own songs. “I came to understand that poetry and music are fundamentally the same,” she explains. The family lived in Oman for three years (due to her father’s work as an oil and gas lawyer), and after turning 8, they returned to Calgary. There, she began training at the School of Alberta Ballet, which serves as the training center for the renowned Alberta Ballet Company. “Our family was very competitive,” McRae notes. “My brother played hockey, and our parents split their time – my dad at my brother’s hockey games and my mom watching me in the dance studio.”

The studio wasn’t just a place for McRae to express herself; it was a safe haven. Having been bullied at school, she left traditional schooling in middle school to learn at home. “[Dancing] was almost like a shield,” she explains. “I could go into the studio and block everything out. It was the one thing I knew I was good at, and where I felt safe.”
Her career really took off in 2016 when she finished third on the 13th season of the Fox reality show So You Think You Can Dance. From the beginning, her talent was clear: Judge Paula Abdul was deeply impressed by McRae’s audition, telling the then-12-year-old: “I wish there was a word that would describe how much you touched me. That was perfection, and I mean that.”

Alongside her dancing, she continued to develop her songwriting skills. In 2011, she started a YouTube channel to share her dance videos. Then, in 2017, she posted a simple video of herself singing an original song called “one day,” and it quickly gained millions of views, leading to its independent release. By 2019, McRae had signed with RCA Records and began recording a series of stripped-down, sad bedroom-pop tracks-including “Tear Myself Apart” (co-written with Billie Eilish and FINNEAS), “All My Friends Are Fake,” and “Stupid.” When the COVID-19 pandemic began, McRae gained viral attention once more with the slower-paced “You Broke Me First,” which became hugely popular on TikTok, featuring in millions of videos.

“I was absolutely writing sad pop music back then,” McRae admits. “I was really upset, and that’s all I wanted to express through my songwriting. I’m fundamentally a happy person, but I always have a touch of sadness inside me. And I believe that inner sadness is what inspires all of my music.”

In 2021, she relocated to Los Angeles. “When I first arrived [in L.A.], I was trying to figure out who I was around so many different people,” McRae remembers. “I didn’t know what I wanted or who was giving me good or bad advice.” Making the transition from professional dancer to singer meant starting over. “As a dancer, you’re simply told what to do and how to do it,” she explains. “But I realized being a singer isn’t just about your performance on any given day-it’s about who you are as a person. You really need to understand yourself and what you enjoy. And surprisingly, having so much freedom can sometimes feel overwhelming.”

It also took a while to build the right team-she notes it really came together in the past year and a half. “There’s always a lot of advice coming at you, and you need to figure out what’s actually helpful,” she explains. “It’s just not possible to do that when you’re 17. How could I be expected to start a career and create a public image [when I] didn’t even know who I was?”

It took McRae a little while to adjust to life in LA, but now she clearly feels comfortable and at ease there. The cafe staff even welcome her warmly, like someone they’ve known for years – not because she’s a celebrity, but because she consistently chooses the same few restaurants whenever she returns to town.

McRae has successfully developed her own unique sound-moving away from sad songs to create polished, danceable tracks that mix R&B, hip‑hop, and dance‑pop. This change has proven successful: her third studio album, So Close to What, reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 chart in early March.

Two months after that, McRae achieved her first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the song “What I Want,” a powerful duet with Morgan Wallen, a leading artist in country music. While many people loved their voices together, some of McRae’s fans were critical of the collaboration because of past issues surrounding Wallen. When asked about this, McRae explained, “For me, it really was about the song, and me wanting to do country music.” She added simply, “That was it.”

In July, news surfaced that McRae and singer The Kid LAROI-who she started dating in early 2024 and collaborates with on the So Close to What song “I Know Love”-had ended their relationship. When we met for breakfast on Monday, it had been two days since LAROI publicly acknowledged the breakup on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s definitely strange,” McRae says about the media attention on her personal life. “I’m also going through this level of public scrutiny for the first time, and it’s new to me. I’ve never experienced anything like it before.”

Looking at everything happening with Tate McRae – a completely sold-out tour, hitting No. 1 with both a song and an album, going viral on TikTok, constant attention from the tabloids, and even two appearances on SNL (one in 2023 and another earlier in 2025), plus a performance at the MTV VMAs – it’s clear she’s really becoming a major cultural figure. But honestly, even if she doesn’t quite reach the very top, she’s told me she’ll be happy as long as she gets to keep doing what she loves. It’s refreshing to see that perspective!

Right now, McRae is looking ahead. Once her concerts across the U.S. are finished, she’s looking forward to catching up with friends in New York and chatting about things other than music, she explains. She’s also keen to return to recording. “While I’m on tour, I jot down ideas in my journal, but I don’t have time to go into the studio and finish a whole song,” she says. “The studio is where I feel most comfortable-it doesn’t even feel like work.”

Similar to her friend Rodrigo, McRae wants to capture those unclear, fleeting moments in life, as she puts it. She says, “I’m aiming to be as genuinely real as I can be.”

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2025-09-30 15:20