SZA has new music — she’s just not sure what she wants you to hear yet. Three years on from her debut studio album, Ctrl, she’s deciding which version of herself to give her fans right now, and what world she wants to build with her long-anticipated next project.
Covering our Summer 2020 issue with a shoot styled and directed by herself at home, SZA reflects on the different sides of her identity as an artist, her diverse range of influences and why she won’t have her music lazily labelled R&B.
Looking back on her career she shares her longstanding respect for Pharrell Williams and what it was like to work with him, as well as her experience collaborating with Justin Timberlake on her most recent single, “The Other Side”, for the Trolls World Tour soundtrack. Right now SZA’s quarantining with her best friend, her dog and her bunny rabbit, and she talks through her plans to work on freeing herself from the approval of others, and learn how to spend time alone with herself.