Doechii says SZA’s ‘Ctrl’ album gave her “the courage” to break up with an ex.
The ‘Anxiety’ hitmaker has revealed the ‘Kill Bill’ singer “inspired” her to be “vulnerable” with her music in ways she doubts she could have, while her 2017 debut studio album enabled her to leave a relationship that was stifling her music career.
Asked if a partner has ever negatively impacted her creativity, she told Cosmopolitan: “I only felt that way once. I was 18, and I was dating a guy who just wasn’t very supportive of my music, and it really stifled me. I stopped writing because he was just like, ‘That’s not cool’.”
Doechii admitted: “I took his opinion way too seriously when really he just didn’t get it.”
She went on: “I remember listening to SZA’s ‘Ctrl’ for the first time and it literally gave me the courage to break up with him. I only bring that up because she inspired me to be vulnerable through my music in a way that I didn’t think I could be.”
Doechii penned a breakup song about the ex and he told her “this sucks” when she let him hear it.
She revealed: “‘Girls’ [2021], the first song I dropped that went viral, was 100 per cent about that ex.
Doechii recounted: “I had been working on it for a year and I played it for him, and he was like, ‘This sucks. What are you even talking about?’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I got to fix this’. And the girls loved it because they felt me.”
Anyone Doechii calls out in her lyrics is already “blocked” so they can’t react.
She said: “If I’m writing about you in the negative, you can’t reach out – you’re blocked.”