‘SOS’ has hit after hit for SZA

The overwhelming success of SZA and her SOS album is great, but it’s a record that still has more legs, and more huge singles are coming too.

The album came out before Christmas last year, and was the eagerly awaited follow-up to 2017’s Ctrl. SZA was a huge underground artist for many years before that, but her ascent to the mainstream was as slow burning as much of her music.

SOS dropped amid an evaporating relationship between SZA and Top Dawg Entertainment, the label that has also famously housed Schoolboy Q, Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Kendrick Lamar, and it will be her last on the label. Kendrick has also now left the label.

SZA helped soundtrack some of the darkest hours of the pandemic with the massively popular ‘Good Days’ in late 2020, and she has since scored hits with ‘I Hate U’ and ‘Shirt’, all of which are included on SOS. ‘Nobody Get’s Me’ dropped as a single soon after SOS came out, but it was ‘Kill Bill’ that catapulted the album into the next stratosphere.

‘Kill Bill’ was a huge single for SZA and her first to top the Billboard chart. It’s a remarkable song, and like much of SZA’s music, it doesn’t pander to mainstream pop. She has always challenged descriptions of her as a mere r&b artist, and though she is part of that genre, she rightfully claims that r&b can be a limiting realm for black artists. She has previously spoken about these limitations, while pointing out that rock ’n’ roll and other genres were created by black artists.

Ctrl sits a bit more comfortably at the hip-hop and r&b table, but on SOS SZA has blown the doors to her potential apart with a massively successful album.

There’s still lots of r&b, neo soul, trap soul and hip-hop soul, but SZA is branching out, and there’s everything from pop-punk to the kind of singer-songwriter stuff that normally gets made by the likes of Taylor Swift. The production and guest list is deep and varied and Darkchild, Babyface, Phoebe Bridges, and the late great ODB join her on the album.

Now that ‘Kill Bill’ has opened things up more, I expect singles such as ‘Snooze’ and ‘Nobody Gets Me’ to gather even more momentum.

The current eco system in pop music tends to support more gradual success and SZA knows this, having been making music since the early 2010s. In the Tik-Tok era things can go viral in minutes and SZA has capitalised, too, but there’s also a converse situation, where some tunes that have been around for months slow burn their way to the top (‘Calm Down’, by Rema, is a big example; it’s been out for over a year). So there might be much more to come from SZA and this album, especially while she tours. Her summer tour will really consolidate an already hugely special relationship she has with her fanbase, and it will bring her to new fans.

Similarly, Beyonce’s ‘Renaissance’ tour will keep that album as relevant as it was late last summer on release. I saw SZA perform at Longitude in 2019 and it was a memorable show, on a Sunday that also featured Solange, Anderson Paak, Kali Uchis and the Internet. SZA plays her own arena shows in Dublin late June.

Ultimately, we are dealing with a great artist and one who is a true generational talent. She is one of the best vocalists of the last number of years, but it is her writing that marks SZA out as one of the best to do it.

Her no-filtered approach to the pen game is refreshing and very on point, and it’s a confessional tone that has no chill. SZA will speak for days on exes that have done her wrong and every anxiety and late night, though, is laid bare on songwriting that is packed with more quotables than even the best rappers.

She’s embracing every insecurity and turning it all into an album that has dominated the US and other charts for months on end!