Tate McRae: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

Tate McRae was lately scrolling TikTok when an previous interview she did at 16 got here throughout the display. “I used to be essentially the most awkward individual ever, and I used to be like, ‘There’s no probability that this is similar individual,’ ” she says with a grimace. “You evolve a lot, and never solely am I seeing it, however I’m documenting it in my music in actual time.”

Now 20 and residing in Los Angeles, the native of Calgary, Alberta (which she calls “the Texas of Canada”), has spent a lot of her life to this point on screens — each her personal, whereas navigating TikTok like a promotional professional, and others, whether or not on community TV or YouTube. As a teen, McRae positioned third on the 2016 season of So You Assume You Can Dance and shortly after, in fall 2017, launched the weekly YouTube sequence Create With Tate, which she used to share new choreography and music covers. She thought she would go on to turn out to be a backup dancer, however she felt equally drawn to songwriting, overlaying her bed room partitions with lyrics, quotes and poems that her mom has since painted over in a shade she describes as “serial killer white.”

One of many first movies she posted was a music that proved she wasn’t destined to be anybody’s backup — and will very a lot maintain pop’s middle stage on her personal. The lovelorn piano ballad “One Day” (which McRae wrote herself) gained traction on-line, and by early 2018, she and her mother and father have been flying to New York for label conferences (accompanied by McRae’s dance supervisor on the time); only a yr later, it was introduced that she had signed a report take care of RCA and a administration take care of Exhausting 8 Working Group. As her highschool commencement in Calgary neared, McRae was splitting her time between midterms and awards reveals.

Tate McRae will carry out on the 2023 Billboard Music Awards on Nov. 19. Watch on BBMAs.watch, @BBMAs and @billboard socials. Learn the complete Billboard cowl story right here.