There was a point before the release of Joyride when the trajectory of Tinashe's music career appeared to be tracing that of Cassie. Tinashe had the platinum debut single with "2 On," a solid parent album, and waning momentum after relatively minor chart success with the follow-up singles. The situation worsened as the arrival of Joyride was delayed and a tour was consequently scrapped. By the time RCA matched Tinashe with labelmate Chris Brown for a non-album single in 2015 -- the year she planned to release Joyride -- it was evident that the singer and her label weren't on the same page. Two more years passed, during which Tinashe offered the stopgap commercial mixtape Nightride. A third and final version of Joyride was finally completed and released in April 2018. Remarkably, it bears no signs of a tough birth, even with the knowledge that the lead song -- the title track -- had been sold to Rihanna, unbeknown to Tinashe, who eventually bought it back.