The roll-out of SZA’s ‘Lana’, billed as a deluxe edition of 2022’s ‘SOS’, has been undoubtedly confusing. The project first arrived two years after its Grammy-winning parent album. An extended version of ‘Lana’ has now materialised two months after its original release – a month later than expected – coinciding with SZA’s appearance as Kendrick Lamar‘s guest at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in New Orleans.
But SZA has never been like those remote pop queens Beyoncé and Lady Gaga: she’s a chronically online perfectionist who overshares. Similar to Charli XCX, SZA’s messy persona is intrinsic to her relatability. She freely exposes flaws and fantasies, declaring self-destructive tendencies in the otherwise understated ‘Take You Down’: “Do you mean it when you say it? / I believe it ’cause you’re my fuckin’ favourite / I took the bait / I lick the poison, baby, over and over again.”
For the most part, the confessional singer-songwriter isn’t simply opportunistically officialising leaked tracks and emptying the vaults of outtakes before embarking on her next phase. The ‘Lana’ songs reveal a more obvious emotional and narrative arc. Personal growth is at the fore. The record is the product of a music industry in which even formats are in flux. And SZA, too, is experiencing transformation.
On the Balearic intro ‘No More Hiding’, a surprisingly sanguine SZA ponders toxic romance, resolving to detach and be true to herself: “I wanna feel sun on my skin / Even if it burns or blinds me.” She abandons trap-soul – ‘Lana’ is all acoustic soul and loungecore, reminiscent of Kali Uchis. The singer flirts with bossa nova on the poppy ‘BMF’, riffing off the jazz standard ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ as she eyes a crush.
The new jewel is ‘Joni’ – a popular “leak” dating from 2020. SZA’s take on Laurel Canyon folk is indebted aesthetically to Joni Mitchell, but samples Elliott Smith’s 1997 ‘Angeles’ (the Auto-Tuned verse by Don Toliver, who previously featured on ‘SOS’s’ ‘Used’, is superfluous). SZA offers her most poetic lyrics as she laments the sacrifices necessitated by striving: “Summer’s over and the money gone / I miss my mama when the tide is low / Moon corrals us to the water and my daddy calls on his / Favourite daughter for a host of loving words, I might oblige him.”
The rage SZA expressed on the deceptively breezy ‘SOS’ cut ‘Kill Bill’ still simmers in ‘What Do I Do’, where she catches a cheating boyfriend. But, in the psych-rock stomper ‘Scorsese Baby Daddy’, SZA good-humouredly admits to being “addicted to the drama” of a dysfunctional relationship. More insightful is ‘Crybaby’, where SZA acknowledges her contradictory public image (“I’m so sick of me too”) and accepts self-accountability.
‘PSA’, a repurposed ‘bonus’ from a digital edition of ‘SOS’, may be SZA’s prettiest song – a cross between Laura Mvula’s pastoral neo-soul and Kanye West’s 2010s prog-hop symphonics with synthetic instrumentation and choral layers. It brings ‘Lana’ full circle, SZA demanding deference: “I don’t want nobody callin’ me anything but number one.”
‘Lana’ heralds SZA’s status as a pop girl. But, subsumed into ‘SOS’, which now stands at 42 tracks, it represents less an era than a transition. ‘Lana’ might have been stronger as a mixtape, a coda to ‘SOS’. But the question now is: what will SZA do next – and when?
Details
- Record label: Top Dawg Entertainment / RCA Records
- Release date: December 20, 2024 / February 9, 2025 (updated version)