Tinashe Brings It On In Her Update to TLC’s “No Scrubs,” “No Broke Boys”

Cardi B might have recently reiterated, “Broke boys don’t deserve no pussy (I know that’s right!),” but it was TLC who helmed that message best on one of their biggest singles, “No Scrubs,” from their FanMail album. Pointedly released in the weeks just before Valentine’s Day of 1999, the song caused an immediately polarizing reaction between the sexes. For women, it was a long overdue roasting of men who presumed that women should “bow down” simply because they were men. For the latter, it was their worst fear realized: the opposite sex not only calling them on their bullshit, but insisting they wouldn’t tolerate it anymore if there wasn’t even any money and associated lavishing to be had out of the deal.

Thus, T-Boz, Chilli and Left-Eye changed womanhood forever with five simple words, “I don’t want no scrub.” The definition being a guy who’s “always talkin’ ‘bout what he wants and just sits on his broke ass.” Tinashe clearly took that message to heart (as much as Cardi B on the aforementioned “Up”) with “No Broke Boys,” her third single from Quantum Baby. Just how much is made apparent when she declares, “Run up the cost, ‘cause I need me a spender/Love is never really for free.” Such a transactional view of “love” almost makes it seem as if she watched Gentlemen Prefer Blondes before writing those lines (and yes, she is blonde in the video).

In contrast to her last music video and song, “Getting No Sleep,” Tinashe has opted to tap very much into her hetero side for this particular concept, even going full cheerleader in the accompanying visual, directed by Aerin Moreno (a frequent collaborator of Madison Beer’s). But more than just dressing in a cheerleader uniform, Tinashe seeks to evoke the vibe of 2000’s Bring It On, complete with her squad going pom-pom to pom-pom with a rival one. And the callback to that era makes sense considering how “00s hip hop/R&B” the backing track—co-produced by Zach Sekoff, Phoelix and Ricky Reed—sounds (it even has occasional tinges of Nivea’s “Don’t Mess With My Man”).

Opening with the verse, “Ex on the line, just as I suspected/No one really gets over me/I’m unaffected, why would you try to ever put me second?/You just another groupie to me now,” there’s something in Tinashe’s tone that recalls Mýa, even though the sentiment isn’t “Case of the Ex,” so much as bearing a similarity to (again) Cardi B flexing, “I like texts from my exes when they want a second chance” on 2018’s “I Like It.” As for the Bring It On “codedness” (read: totally overt callback to said 00s masterpiece), Tinashe and co. appear on the football field and on the bleachers to perform their lively choreo with ample confidence.

In one of the only scenes off the field, Tinashe—in the “costume” of a football player rather than a cheerleader (perhaps a subtle nod to her “swinging both ways”)—teaches her fellow women what she calls “Our Standards.” This done in a manner and mise-en-scène that also harkens back to another 00s movie: Mean Girls. Specifically, when Coach Carr (Dwayne Hill) warns his students in “health class,” “Don’t have sex. Because you will get pregnant and die.” Here, what Tinashe is ultimately saying to men is: Don’t be broke. Because you will be dead to me otherwise.

As for the standards Tinashe lists for her own far more attentive pupils than the ones in Coach Carr’s class, they are: 1) Not broke, 2) Under 1K followers (an interesting “ask”), 3) Big dick, 4) Not a DJ/promoter, 5) Six inches (or “6’s”) minimum, 6) Good with his hands and 7) Emotionally available. Not just a lot to require of any “modern” man, but additionally rather cliched and outmoded at this point in terms of conveying a stereotype about “what women want.” Nonetheless, as her squad takes notes, even the team led by the other head cheerleader (the one who looks like a version of Megan Fox in the earlier stages of her plastic surgery) has to stop and pay attention. So on board with the list, in fact, that they even put aside their differences/competitiveness long enough for them to nod in agreement, smile and infiltrate the class.

During the “big finish” of the video, the two groups join in together on their presently shared choreography, having found peace and common ground through this understanding of the “no scrubs” code that has, evidently, been updated to “no broke boys.” A concept Destiny’s Child also spoke to on “Bills Bills Bills,” which, incidentally, was released the same year as “No Scrubs”—but the former put their single out in May of 1999, two months after “No Scrubs” had already caused shock and delight around the world (though mainly in the United States, where a “response song” like “No Pigeons” “had to be” released in order to “keep women in check,” or some such bullshit male logic).   

But Tinashe actually succeeds more deftly than Destiny’s Child at distilling and repurposing what TLC already said, refreshing their message with the upbeat chorus, “No broke boys, no new friends/I’m that pressure, give me my tens/Ain’t no lie, ain’t no shade/Fuck on me, then you know he paid/Looks so good, makes no sense/Bad ass bitch, with my bad ass friends/No broke boys, ain’t no shade/Fuck on me, then you know he paid.” All sung in a very “cheerleader chant” sort of way.

By the final frame of the video, however, Tinashe is walking all alone down the fifty-yard line—yet another indication that she’d rather be a “lone” wolf/cheerleader than settle for some dusty football player who’s going to end up as a used car salesman rather than a Travis Kelce. Hey, no one ever said capitalism and “love” weren’t inextricably linked. Least of all TLC.