This is the acceptable sound of new r&b, mood music for the chronically downbeat who are unwillingly to raise their voices above a hush while every word has a threat and a promise in the midst. It is music to watch your life slowly drift by and yet still keep entangled in the miniature and details of it all. The synths swing low and acoustic guitars are plugged out of the air, rappers don’t quite rap and more sigh and by the time you reach the third track, “Julia” it seems loud though it isn’t very.
SZA is really 23 year old soul singer Solana Rowe. Part Moslim, part Christian, all upper middle class, according to Wikipedia “Rowe formed her stage name from the Supreme Alphabet, taking influence from rapper RZA, the last two letters in her name stand for Zig-zag and Allah, while the first letter Rowe developed herself switching it from savior to “sovereign.”.” In 2011 she joined Kendrick Lamar on stage and got herself signed to Top Dawg with all the other Black Hippie crew, and on this “EP” (ten songs and 40 minutes, I guess that makes Please Please Me a single) , her second release, Kendrick joins her on the chant enhanced “Babylon” with its “crucified” intro suggesting her mothers side of the family.
Isaiah Rashad is on “Warm Winds”, a tempter with a sly acoustic guitar lick and strings, and Chance The Rapper, a man I consider the best rapper since Earl Sweatshirt, is on another, the potential hit “Child’s Play”. The first two songs on the EP, “U R” is first, are so strong the quality can’t help but dip a little.
Her sound is like when you;’re feeling really good and yet are not good enough, at the back of her sound there is a tick tock of spaced out time warp. It is all very studio driven and also all very deeply and quietly felt but unlike a little too much alt r&b it sounds very good as well, it isn’t flimsy and the songs have sticking power. At some point, SZA has to go further along than this chill jazz r&b sound. But not right now.
Grade: B+
