SZA had a fantastic Grammy night. She took home another Grammy for Best R&B song for her hit song “Saturn.” She didn’t walk the red carpet, but she was in the audience and then took some time to answer some rolling out questions backstage. She gets introspective about her upcoming Super Bowl performance and more.
Is there anything that you can share with us about what we can expect during your Super Bowl performance?
Nothing at all. That’s King Kendrick‘s performance and that is all for him to divulge. What I can say is he’s worked really hard on it and I feel honored to be a part of it. And I’m so honored to even know him, [to] exist at the same time frame as him.
How do you keep redefining R&B and what is next for you?
Yeah, I don’t really think I’m actually placing [myself in] that box. I think these are the parameters in which I’ve been honored this evening and I’m grateful for that. And I think within all the parameters in which I’ve been honored, regardless of the label, I’m grateful. But that’s not the work. That’s not the point. The point is the reach and the impact and the experience that I’ve had creating music and all types of music and having that be recognized, by like all types of people and all genres of people. So I think if anyone is going to find people to, you know, get out of the genre bag and just do what you want on it and make it feel beautiful to you and make it make sense to you.
SZA speaking out again
You just finished your silent retreat. What did you learn during that time of silence?
Not everything has to be said, and waiting is really important. And a lot of what we create for ourselves is drama and chaos. It is also thankfully dependent on our willingness to go beyond that pain and look for anything desperately. If you’re looking for joy desperately, but if you chase it tenaciously, I find that it will reveal itself even in the darkest and craziest depths of existence and life and trauma. I feel like right now with the country and just everyone being in despair [it’s] more important now than ever to be able to go within yourself and find that and spread that peace that you have from within yourself out into the world. So that’s my goal, hopefully — to just learn more peace within myself so that I can share it.
What does all this kind of mean for you to move forward?
I just want to try harder and I think for a long time I was afraid to strive and be embarrassed, especially in public because striving daily is hard. But this is such a far hand experience like our life, all reality, every experience. I just realized when I did my first ever world tour and I’m never going to be able to do that again. That’s it. I just want to strive to soak up and be higher frequency so that I can really collect myself. My goals, my desires, my gratitude. And let that multiply and see what else God has for me.
What inspired “Saturn?”
It was such a casually written song, inspired by Stevie Wonder, and his reference to Saturn and how he talks about in that place there is less destruction and death and pollution and all these things, and part of me realizing there’s nowhere else to go. There is no Saturn. It’s one of the planets no one’s ever talked about visiting.
(Editor’s note: For you astronomer sticklers out there, rest assured we know that Saturn is a gas giant and has no “surface” for anybody to visit. But it’s the Grammys, so we rolled with it because that’s why we’re rolling out.)
