“I think there’s a time in every artist’s life [when] they have to do something that isn’t for fans, isn’t for success, isn’t for touring,” Miley Cyrus told Apple Music in 2018. Cyrus could’ve been speaking about any number of moments from her profoundly varied career. Born Destiny Hope Cyrus—the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus—in Tennessee in 1992, the innovative artist has hardly stayed in one lane for more than a single album since she broke from the bubblegum pop that catapulted her to stardom as Disney’s Hannah Montana. Her 2009 summer anthem “Party In the U.S.A.” earned her a rapid ascent within the pop world, where 2013’s Bangerz—which showcased her musical maturity with “Wrecking Ball” and experimented with elements of Dirty South hip-hop—made her an icon. Vocal about her pansexuality and love for marijuana, Cyrus has worked hard to shed her wholesome teen image, and simultaneously defied odds by earning a reputation for an intense work ethic and an unshakable self-assuredness. She headed to left-field with the psych-tinged 2015 album Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, a collaboration with members of The Flaming Lips, and with 2017’s Younger Now, a countrified pop offering that featured godmother Dolly Parton. And she's teamed up with rappers Mike Will Made It and will.i.am, Sarah Barthel of electronic rock group Phantogram, and, in 2018, Mark Ronson for the dramatic hit single “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart.” Those frequent partnerships have been major catalysts in the creation of Cyrus' diverse catalog and in the cementing of her status as a pop pace-setter by refusing to let it, or herself, be easily defined.