SZA topped the Billboard Hot 100 and scored one of the best-selling songs of the year with tracks she openly hates, calling her biggest commercial triumphs mere palette cleansers she freestyled between heavier projects. This deep dive into Solana Imani Rowe explores how she conquered the music industry by putting her anxiety and messiest insecurities front and center.

From an interfaith New Jersey upbringing and a dropped marine biology degree to becoming Top Dawg Entertainment’s first female artist, we trace her slow-burn rise from Tumblr darling to record-breaker. Her album SOS spent 100 weeks in the Billboard 200’s top 10, breaking records held by Adele and Michael Jackson.

• The origin of her stage name in the Supreme Alphabet and Five-Percent Nation
• How her label gave her song Consideration to Rihanna for Anti
• Writing from other people’s perspectives as a psychological defense mechanism
• Why she fiercely rejects the R&B label as restrictive and prejudiced
• Her 2025 dominance co-headlining the Grand National Tour with Kendrick Lamar