Months of frenzied speculation have finally drawn to a close: the Glastonbury lineup has dropped.
In addition to heavy hitters such as Dua Lipa, Shania Twain and Coldplay, who will be taking over the Pyramid Stage over the weekend, the other headliner is SZA, who will be making her Glastonbury debut as a fellow headliner.
Glastonbury described her in the lineup announcement as a “multiple Grammy and Brits winner – and quite possibly the hottest hip hop / R&B act on the planet”. But who is she, and what might a SZA headline set look like? With SZA set to take to both the Pyramid Stage and BST later this year, we explain all.
Who is SZA?
Born Solana Imani Rowe, SZA (pronounced ‘sizza’ for those who were wondering) was born in 1989 and raised in New Jersey. She went to a Muslim prep school, and initially wore a hijab – before Islamophobic bullying after the 9/11 attacks led her to stop.
After graduating, she studied marine biology, before dropping out in her last term to work odd jobs while pursuing her music career.
“I’m like, ‘I told you I was smart and I proved my point. I have to leave now,’” she told Elle. She then “completely flunked out of school and stopped working at jobs that make any sense to other people.”
At the same time, she was developing her sound. Much of SZA’s early music was recorded with friends, where she recalls they “stole a bunch of beats off the Internet”; she released her first EP See. SZA. Run on SoundCloud in 2012 and worked in fashion for a time.
One day, she was making a delivery to the influential record label Top Dawg Entertainment (best known for launching the career of Kendrick Lamar) and happened to get talking to the president, Terrence ‘Punch’ Henderson. The two stayed in touch, and when Punch heard her vocals, he was impressed; two years later, after the release of debut 2012 album See.SZA.Run, she became the label’s first female signing.
Her time with TDE hasn’t always been smooth-sailing; in 2020, SZA claimed in a since-deleted tweet that Punch was responsible for delays to her eventual second album SOS.
What’s in a name?
Similarly to Wu-Tang Clan rapper RZA, SZA took her name from the Supreme Alphabet – a system of interpreting text taken from the Five-Percent Nation (an Afro-American Nationalist movement). The letter S stands for either saviour or sovereign; Z stands for Zig-Zag and A for Allah.
What’s her sound?
SZA is a versatile artist: her songs veer from precise rap to large-scale ballads, which address everything from the gory and satirical (her murderous revenge fantasy Kill Bill) to detailing an post-sex argument with her now-ex following a raunchy encounter at Las Vegas’ MGM hotel (Nobody Gets Me).
“The only way that I don’t bore myself is to bare myself,” she told Elle. “It’s freeing and empowering AF.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, she’s also one of the most successful independent artists of all time; this year alone, she won three Grammys for her work.
She’s worked with Drake, Phoebe Bridgers, Lizzo and Justin Timberlake in her time, and has won multiple awards – her 2017 breakthrough debut album Ctrl was nominated for four Grammys and has since gone triple platinum. Her 2022 follow-up, SOS, spent ten consecutive weeks at number one in the US, making her the first artist to do so since Adele in 2015.
SZA has also been upfront about her mental health struggles over the years. “Some people think that, like, me having anxiety or me being shy or struggling with self-esteem is an act,” she told Elle.
“I’m just, dead-ass, a person. Everybody else has feelings and fears. Why wouldn’t I be scared to be famous?... I wasn’t born famous. I had regular quiet-ass parents from a small town like everybody else.”
