Tate McRae on her athlete’s mentality
In July 2021, Tate McRae appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. It was not the first time the 18-year-old Canadian had featured on the US chat show. In 2016, she performed as part of a dance troupe. But this time she was there as a musical guest – a slot recently filled by the likes of Billie Eilish, Lizzo and Pink.
“That was wild,” she says with a sharp laugh. “Going back to the Ellen Show as the artist was such a different experience. It felt like going as a fan to a festival and then performing at the festival. That was the contrast. I was on the show beforehand but it just wasn’t the same thing. It wasn’t me as an individual.”
Since her last appearance on the show, McRae had essentially changed professions, from pro dancer to pop singer-songwriter. A brave move, but one that has paid off. When we speak, McRae is back in the US having just returned from a European tour. Her Instagram is littered with photos of her posing in front of famous landmarks
(the Eiffel Tower, a Venetian canal) and playing to screaming crowds. “It was unreal,” she gushes. “Touring in European places, not only do I get to see the whole world, which was a dream, but I didn’t expect fans to be that crazy in other countries. They’re definitely hungry for music and live shows, which is so cool to see.” Like contemporaries such as Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo, McRae found fame early. Originally from Calgary in western Canada, she lived in Oman until she was six as her family travelled with her father’s work.
Six was also the age she started dancing. “I genuinely was just a really competitive person and I wanted to be the best dancer in the room, whichever room I went to,” she recalls.
“And so I trained my ass off and when I was eight years old I would travel a lot for dancing, and my mom was my dance teacher. So it kind of took up my entire life.”
When McRae was 13 she started to go through what she knowingly calls “middle school drama. Because I was so into my dancing I had trouble talking about real feelings and actually opening up to people,” she says. “So I would go to poetry and stories as a way to express myself in any sense. And then my grandpa bought me a piano and I started posting original songs out of nowhere when I was like 13. And that’s how it all started. I signed at 14 and it was a really crazy process.” Indeed, McRae was barely a teenager when she signed a record deal, prompted by the viral success of her song One Day. And after finishing as a finalist on the 13th season of the US talent TV show So You Think You Can Dance, she created her own YouTube video series, Create With Tate – another success.
“It’s so crazy because at 14 I had absolutely no idea what was happening,” she says with a confident laugh that belies her years. McRae has brought the rigour of her dance training to her songwriting and live shows.
“I genuinely feel like I have a very athlete-like mentality,” she says with steely determination.