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SZA talks about music, working in different genres & her fears:

Posted on July 9th, 2020
by
Staff Editor


SZA’s 2017 album, Ctrl, has been on the Billboard 200 Chart for 150 weeks already, and even with the few singles and features she’s dropped afterwards, her fans are still wanting more. We’re here to finally let you know that SZA is working on the follow up, but that’s all she wants to be known for now. “Deepak Chopra says that when you spend energy talking about something, you use the energy that you would have had to complete the project,” she tells Wonderland Magazine. “I’m just trying to stop talking about it and, you know, do it.”

Photography
 Blair Caldwell
Words
 Jennifer Lynn
Creative direction and Styling
 SZA
Editorial Director
 Huw Gwyther
Entertainment Director
 Erica Cornwall
Cover Design
 Olivia Woodgate

Growing up, SZA was very diverse in the music she listened to. She grew up NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Ella Fitzgerald, Jamiroquai and more. These artists also is what influenced SZA’s unique sound, and why she doesn’t want to be limited to the genre of R&B.

“Nobody does that to white people at all, ever. No one ever does that to Adele or Justin Bieber when they’re wholeheartedly singing R&B. Or Björk, where nobody’s sure what the f**k she’s singing, but it’s energy and nobody’s concerned,” she says.

Photography
 Blair Caldwell
Words
 Jennifer Lynn
Creative direction and Styling
 SZA
Editorial Director
 Huw Gwyther
Entertainment Director
 Erica Cornwall
Cover Design
 Olivia Woodgate

She continues: “It’s like the only genre that we’re allowed to own is R&B and soul, and even then you might get bumped outta that category by somebody with fairer skin and a better marketing team. But I can’t pretend it’s not exciting to see someone who isn’t black execute so exceptionally well. It’s mystifying; the soul is an energy. Like Nai Palm from Hiatus Kaiyote, she’s a f**king force to be reckoned with. She’s one of my favourite voices of soul right now, next to Ari Lennox. R&B is too fickle. I spent too much time growing up on just as much Imogen Heap, and listening to Comfort Eagle by Cake and vibing for people to call me a ‘queen of R&B’. Why can’t I just be a queen, period?”

View the full interview and photoshoot with the Wonderland Magazine here.

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