Why I love Tate McRae (and so should you)

If you search for Tate McRae on YouTube, you'll quickly come across footage of her as a young girl, probably around ten years old. “Later, I’m going to perform in big arenas,” she says confidently to the camera. In other videos, she auditions for the role of Matilda in the musical of the same name or vlogs about her ballet lessons as a teenager.

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When the Canadian artist came to Belgium three years ago, she performed at Trix, a small venue in Antwerp that holds just a few hundred people. It was a legendary concert—just like her show last year at the Lotto Arena. Same city, but suddenly 5,000 seats. And in May 2025, she outdid herself once again in Antwerp: over 20,000 fans filled the Sportpaleis. Her biggest arena show to date.

Tate brings a kind of pop music that’s refreshingly straightforward. While a Taylor Swift song might be packed with layers of metaphor and hidden meanings, Tate tells it like it is. She's the Britney Spears of this generation—minus the scandals. Her songs echo hits from artists like Nelly or The Pussycat Dolls, and her alter ego, Tatiana, embraces it unapologetically.

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And yet, that young girl from YouTube still feels very present. Anyone who has followed her journey knows where she started—how hard she worked to find a style that reflected both her vocal and dance talents. No, the show I saw wasn’t perfect. At times, Tate seemed torn between focusing on choreography or the music. But few artists pour their heart into a performance the way she does, giving everything, every single time—because this is truly her dream come to life.

For a sold-out Sportpaleis, she referred to that childhood dream, then paused to take it all in. “This is the last time I’ll experience this,” she said, referencing how this tour has seen her sell out some of the world’s biggest arenas in record time. With 20,000 people in Antwerp as the current highlight—but many more stops still ahead.

You deserve the world, Tatiana. What a show. What a woman.