SZA Had This Cryptic Realization About Her Feature Songs With Cardi B, Rihanna And DJ Khaled
The countdown for SZA’s sophomore album has begun. While the Grammy-nominated artist hasn’t dropped any specifics regarding the follow-up to her 2017 debut, CTRL, she recently sat down with social media personality Kerwin Frost to talk about her career and the upcoming project.
Top Dawg Entertainment’s resident songstress invited Kerwin into her home where the two discussed her transition from obscurity to her ubiquitous rise as hip-hop’s reigning neo-soul princess on his newly launched web series, Kerwin Frost Talks.
The free-ranging discussion verged into how the CTRL singer is becoming more attuned with herself on a spiritual level. With that on the table, Kerwin pondered over SZA’s intimately raw debut album and how that will impact music on her second album.
Around the 42-minute mark, SZA elaborated how in the past she made music based on what she heard as opposed to what she was personally into until an incident spurned her to create music that matched her energy, which snowballed into the creation of her debut album. That musical journey lead SZA to realizing that she needed to let her instincts and intuition guide her in the studio.
“You just gotta make s**t that feels good,” she elaborated. “Just trust that this is what you're supposed to be doing, because you know what sounds good.”
The songstress explained that she knows a track is good when she can feel her essence in the DNA of the song. To illustrate, SZA explained that having to adapt her sound to fit someone else’s vision or vibe causes her to not recognize herself “spiritually” on the song.
“I feel like features are so different and so difficult because you have to fit someone else’s fantasy. I can listen to the [DJ Khaled] record and know that that's not me. One hundred percent,” she said, stating “that version of [herself] is unfamiliar to [her] spirit.”
She contrasted the songs with new collaborations in the works with Justin Timberlake and Post Malone, which she feels are a little more like her. SZA clarified that just because a song may not resonate with her, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.
"It's not to say those are bad songs, it's just that my body doesn't recognize it,” she continued "So, when I make my own music, I won't stop until I recognize it, and that's how I know it's never going to be f**ked up.”
