After being nominated for five Grammys and going home empty-handed, SZA has been relatively quiet. Now, the Top Dawg Entertainment/RCA songstress is breaking her silence about the night that left her “mad as hell.”
Speaking with GQ, Solana Rowe explained how she felt following Music’s Biggest Night. “I felt a shift,” she said. “Like, I came a really long-ass way. I didn’t imagine this album doing much anyway. I was so grateful to even have been honored by being nominated and having so many people fuck with my music. I feel like at some point you start to get sucked up into the accolades and you’re like, Oh, this is what this is about, and this is what quantifies my success or me as an artist or a human being. We reached a billion streams on Spotify. The United States fucks with my songs. We’re changing little girls’ lives across the world, and we didn’t even know what we were doing when we started. This is something much bigger than me and a fucking trophy. I’m appreciative of the opportunity. But shit happens.”
During the interview, SZA also opened up about the aftermath, which found Alessia Cara criticized for the Best New Artist win. The “All the Stars” songstress said she didn’t look “at anything anyone ever said” online but that she saw Alessia Cara’s post.
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“My home girl actually showed me Alessia [Cara]’s post and I thought, This is really crazy,” she said. “I just didn’t know how to take it. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t post, because I’ve never had to deal with anything I really believed in wholeheartedly, or invested in, and went through something that publicly before. I wanted to be honest as fuck, and if today I’m just mad as hell, I don’t want to say something that reflects me being mad as hell. But I definitely feel blessed now. I also don’t feel compelled to explain myself.
“If anything, I feel compelled to express that I really, really fuck with Alessia Cara,” she added. “She’s beautiful as fuck, her voice is like water, it’s like milk, I think it’s gorgeous. It has so much dimension, and she deserves every accolade that she gets. And people can’t be mad. I don’t give a fuck when her album came out! She sounds great right now! So, like, it’s over. You have to just move over and be grateful for the shit that did happen in your favor.”
Up next, Solana will be working on her sophomore album, but the Grammys won’t be on her mind. “I didn’t make my album with the Grammys in mind, and I’m definitely not gonna make my second one with the Grammys in mind,” she explained. “I’m just gonna make really good fucking music and just try to touch people.”