ZapGossip

SZA on new album LANA: ‘I want to allow it to finish shaping itself’

SZA is allowing her new album, ‘Lana’, to shape itself and admits it could “change the trajectory” of “what it could be”.

The ‘Snooze’ hitmaker originally set out for the collection to be a deluxe edition of her Grammy-winning album ‘SOS’ with songs that didn’t make the final tracklisting, but she later confirmed that it turned into a whole other album.

The chart-topping star – whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe – has decided not to describe the songs on ‘Lana’ because it could all change direction before she’s finished.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: “You know, this round, I actually don’t want to say anything. Just because I feel like I do myself a disservice because you can shift the energy of the album. You got to let it form itself. Because I’m not really forming anything.

“I’m just kind of here while energy is forming and I’m just trying to allow it to do what it needs to do, and my voice just follows whatever the frequency is.

“So I feel like I want to allow it to finish shaping itself and form itself before I speak on it and possibly change the trajectory of what it could be. But I will say I’m in a beautiful space creatively and I feel just very new.”

At the weekend, SZA took home three Grammy Awards for Best R’n’B Song for ‘Snooze’, Best Progressive R’n’B Album for ‘SOS’ and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance alongside Phoebe Bridgers for ‘Ghost in the Machine’.

Album of the Year went to Taylor Swift for ‘Midnights’ and SZA insists she is just “grateful” to have won the prizes she did and to not have made any mistakes at the live-streamed bash, as she finds attending the massive ceremony, which was held at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday (04.02.24), so overwhelming as someone who suffers from anxiety about public appearances.

Asked if she wishes she’d won Album of the Year, she replied: “I don’t actually. I’m grateful I won three. I could have left with nothing, and I didn’t, and I’m grateful. My parents got to see it and I didn’t bomb on live television, and that was so scary. And I faced some really big fears and I’m just happy that it all went well, genuinely. And I’m happy for everybody.”