On the evening before SZA’s recent “Saturday Night Live” performance, the singer’s Manhattan rehearsal space is filled with people. There’s Chance the Rapper’s musical director, Peter Cottontale, who’s organizing a high school choir and a mini-orchestra of clarinet, trumpet, and flute players. There’s SZA’s normal backing band, a trio who look recruited straight out of music school. There’s Punch, the president of her record label, TDE, and SZA’s new vocal coach, who walks in with a Charlie Puth tour laminate around his neck. But as the musicians practice, SZA herself is nowhere to be found. She’s resting her voice, somewhere out of sight.
When she finally appears, wearing an oversized brown sweater poncho, fancy-looking sweatpants, and giant Balenciaga sneakers, she immediately cozies up with the high schoolers, hugging them and thanking them for their time. One of the teenagers calls her friend on FaceTime. “This is your birthday present!” the girl says, pointing her phone at SZA. She waves enthusiastically.
Sitting down for this interview in a dingy dressing room down the hall, the 27-year-old leans back in her chair and puts her big sneakers up on a desk, looking like an extremely dressed-down, tired executive. It’s been a wildly successful year, and she’s still adjusting to how her life has changed because of it.
After endless delays, her debut album Ctrl was finally released over the summer. A huge step forward from her previous releases, it’s nominally an R&B record, but it incorporates indie rock, emo, soul, and rap in a very modern way. What’s so striking about the album is its frank lyrics, the casual way she talks about potentially awkward subjects like sex, cheating, and disappointment. She sings about things that have happened to her in a way that is hyper specific, though so many of the situations are universal. Her language is literal, not metaphorical, and it makes for jarring and refreshing pop music. Laying out her jealousy on “Drew Barrymore,” she sings: “You came with your new friends/And her mom jeans and her new Vans/And she’s perfect and I hate it.” These candid revelations make her very easy to love, admire, and root for.
Ctrl entered the Billboard 200 at No. 3 in July and has maintained a healthy chart position ever since. The album also placed high on many year-end critics’ lists, including ours, and earned her five Grammy nominations. All of this has been a pleasant surprise to SZA as much as it has been to anyone who’s enjoyed the record in these past six months.
“I feel like people are sick of me saying I’m surprised,” she says. “They’re like, ‘Bitch, shut up,’ and I’m just like, ‘I can’t because I’m literally still shook.’” At this point, the person she sang about on the record—a kind of reformed nerd with a lot of relationship issues—is now really busy. But she’s doing her best, while remaining ever the people pleaser: “I can pretend to be not shook if it would make y’all less angry with me.”
SZA: Airbnb-ing from place to place. Then, six months ago, I signed a lease on this apartment [in L.A.]. But I’m about to move out of there, ’cause I need a house. My dog is stressed.
This time last year everything was so different. I had so much time. I have much more appreciation for the time that I do have to myself: Spending time with my mom, or getting my nails done, or going to the sauna, or taking a nap may be the best three hours of my life now.
Yes.
And mindful. The truth is, that time was always valuable, it was just hard to see the value.
Sometimes I get overwhelmed and sad, and I don’t know how to process all that energy. Social shit is weird and now it’s getting even weirder ’cause I’m like, “Oh, shit, I’m probably not gonna be in a normal social setting for a minute.” But what is getting more normal is that I met James Franco yesterday and I wasn’t scared. I’m usually terrified. He grabbed my arms and was just like, “Hi, I’m James Franco,” and I was like, “I know who you are.” I just reached out and grabbed him to hug me, and he was so close to my face, and I wasn’t scared. Famous people are always close to your face. I remember the first time I met Pharrell, he was like this to my nose [brings her hand to close to her face], and I was like, “Sir, please, you’re too close. I’m scared.” I was quivering. But now I’m just too interested to be scared.
I never imagined I would be in the same space as James Franco, but now that I am I’m like, “What the fuck’s going on with everybody? How does everybody getting through this day? How do you feel right now?”
Yeah. I feel like everybody kind of knows what’s going on. Some people, the good ones, are really riding the wave by being present and in their own little world. They’re building it out in detail and are not concerned with the external world because the internal world becomes the external world.
It’s elusive. It’s another representation of the egoic mind, the want for control because you can’t accept lack of control. Control is not real, and I’m really understanding that every day. It’s about the acceptance of relinquishing control that makes it powerful for you. My anxiety stems from my lack on control no matter what. I will still sweat, shit, and cry before something I am really scared to do. But I’m learning how to channel that into something else. I don’t want to talk shit. I don’t want to be bitchy to my team. I don’t want to panic. I don’t want to speak negativity into existence. I only believe in beautiful opportunity and that’s it. I don’t have any control over what actually happens except for that I have full control over my will for myself, my intention, and why I’m there. That’s all that matters.
Yes, and I’m into it. It’s a new concept—focus—but I’m obsessed with it.
It’s like meditating, but then I hated the idea of meditating ’cause it was so fucking vague. It was like, “What are you thinking about?” But my inner dialogue is loud, strong, and busy. I was like, “I need more than just, ‘Clear your mind.’” It was more that I started focusing my thoughts on things I really wanted to do. Not everyone in your inner dialogue needs to be heard. Your higher self needs to be heard the loudest and it’s usually the quietest.
I think I recently discovered how magical she was, and then once I did, I was like, “Everyone deserves this.”
I was immature and not open to her kindness, her beauty. I was like, “I want. I want. I want.” My ego was too big and it was swallowing me. Your ego is more than just feeling dope about yourself. It’s more than even making things about you—even sadness is a representation of a ego. Sometimes you think the same thing too much, like, “What do people think about me? People don’t like me. This person is not nice to me.” Playing a victim is your ego taking form and shape-shifting in negative ways. It was so different when I started to diminish my ego and just appreciate my mom. I even started asking her for advice for the first time two years ago.
Fire advice. My mom knows everything.
Just me. Literally the exact same. I dressed the same. I talked the same. I’m probably living off of my high-school intelligence, honestly. I had JNCO jeans and fuckin’ 30 bracelets on at the same time. Just a lot going on. But I listened to Limp Bizkit, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Macy Gray, Nine Inch Nails—that was a weird phase for me. Like, Hello? Are you all right?
No. No. I was such an emotive child. Wow. That was so dangerous. I can’t believe I made it out of childhood. I was just so feely and moody and sensitive. And I was super sheltered, so I feel like I wasn’t prepared for real life. I didn’t know how to make friends. My friends were my neighbors: If you didn’t live next door to me, then we probably weren’t friends. There are a few people that are gonna be like, “SZA, I love you, we were always friends.” But it’s just like, no, and y’all know it.
I feel like Issa Rae is me for real. The way that she gives pep talks to herself; I would always do baby raps on the way to dealing with shit. [raps] “I hate my shoes, I hate my hair, but I gotta get to this meeting. Somebody light the blunt. Somebody light the blunt.” It’s just what girls do. It’s like, “Wow, Issa, you exposed us.” In the coolest way, though. I was just so thankful that she fucked with me, in any capacity, because I was so inspired by her honesty and how funny as hell she was. I love to laugh. It’s my favorite pastime. When I heard “Supermodel” on “Insecure” it made me relive it all over again.
Oh, my God, Rihanna calls me her ghetto nerd. It’s so funny. I’m like, “What are you talking about?”
Yes. I feel like people simplify black women to just an attitude, like we don’t take no shit. But there are so many emotions, so much fear and pressure, so much pride. We need to tap into that shit. I feel like it’s important to give women who aren’t black insight to know that we fight fears, insecurities. That we exist in all bounds. So many people meet and become friends at my shows that didn’t know each other before. I think they’re surprised when they come together and see each other.
It’s crazy. They’re like every different facet in me, like super somber me, super serious me, super goofy me, super loud me, super intellectual me, super mystic me, super self-doubting me, super self-loathing me. They give me books, they hand me crystals and prayers. It’s like they’re expressions of my deepest thoughts.
When people trash you, you’re forced to look at yourself and be like, “OK, you have to get better.” What does getting better mean? Well, you don’t know what getting better means. Stop trying to figure out what it means and watch the process and just learn. So I sat and I learned and then I got angry because so much was happening in the meantime. People were putting their albums out, and I was getting looked over again and again and again. I was just like, “I feel like I’m disappearing into the ether, like I’m not important.” At times, I was like, “Maybe I shouldn’t make this.” But that anger turned into commitment into being.
Listening to my old music, I’m like, “This is too low. There’s too much reverb.” I was scared of the sound of my own voice. But then I became too fed up to be scared anymore, so I was like, “I don’t give a fuck if my voice is nasally. We need to figure out a better mic.” You have to learn if you want to do better, and some of that shit might be ass, but you have to just do it, and I just did that.
I love “Narcos.” It’s always fucked up.
I have adult ADHD, so I was bored with generic me, so specificity made my thoughts interesting to me. Otherwise, everything just disappears out of my brain so fast. My mind is like, “Where did it go?” So if something is more poignant or pungent, it usually sticks a little longer, and the stuff that sticks is the stuff I like to transfer [into lyrics].
When I’m looking at someone in a crowd and I can see their face and I’m confident in the way that I’m talking to them when I sing, I’m like, “I know you need me right now. I’m gonna pay attention to you. I want you to know that I see you and I’m talking to you.” I can see in their face that they’re really fucked up in that moment of whatever we’re talking about in the song, or however the music makes them feel, and they just need to be with me.
I know how they feel because I felt like that at some point. It’s weird. When you write from your subconscious, you don’t always know how you feel until you hear it and you’re like, “Oh, interesting.” There’s definitely shit that’s not on the album ’cause it was way too much, too personal. Live from my subconscious! I’m actually glad it’s not on the album. Some people couldn’t handle “The Weekend,” or “Supermodel.” Conceptually, it’s still taboo. I’m just like, “What’s wrong with you? Why is this weird to you, that everyone fucks, everyone gets sad, everyone wishes they made better decisions, everyone wishes they had more control?”
In one way, I want to heal people. In other ways, I don’t want to confuse people and have them feel like, “What does this mean?” When it gets too personal, even if it’s dark or crazy, it’s just scary. I don’t write about shit that didn’t happen to me, so it can be too much, but I have courage. I was thinking about putting all the shit that I was scared to put on my album onto the deluxe version and then disappearing. “The Weekend”—I got about four of them shits. I had no clue that people liked shit like that.
I dated such arrogant men, they’re just so full of themselves. But I also feel like they don’t care that I’m singing about them. They still want to come to the show because they’re arrogant. Then some boys wished it was [about them], and they were like, “I didn’t hurt you that bad.” And I’m like, “You’re right, you didn’t, so congrats.” Like, relax. But it’s been interesting. Lord. It’s been so crazy, those boys. People are more mad at me about the way I treated my exes than I am. I’m always just like, “He deserved it. He don’t give a fuck about what I did. I was minding my business in Brooklyn, while he was in Vegas having an orgy.” It’s been a strange time.
I’m sorry, I burped. I’ve been burping all day.
I didn’t even start diminishing my ego until the end of this project, so now I’m really all the way in, talking to my inner dialogue, really acknowledging thoughts as they come in, and sweeping some of them shits to the side, like, “No, get the fuck out of here with that. Don’t use any words that indicate fear. You’re only excited, at worst, anxious. You gotta be clear.” Each moment has to be like that. If it’s the Grammys, if it’s anything, you have to just let it be mindful and create the dialogue rather than just filter the dialogue. That’s where I’m at right now. I never did that before. I was barely filtering it out on Ctrl. I was just worried about whatever the fuck was in my brain, but now I’m understanding. In a weird way, my acceptance of a lack of control gave me the gift of control.
