SINGER OF THE YEAR

“I FUCKED UP,” SZA tells me.

- BY FRAZIER THARPE

dresses (throughout) Dolce & Gabbana shoes (throughout) Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello ring (on right index finger, throughout) Kallati underwear and all other jewelry (throughout), her own

It’s been about a month and a half since the singer returned home to Los Angeles after wrapping her first international co-headlining stadium tour. It was the capper to an exemplary 2025 that included costarring in her first feature film and a single that spent 13 consecutive weeks at the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100—a run that began shortly after she appeared in February’s Super Bowl halftime show. She’s been in go mode for the majority of the year. How then, after finally coming off the road in August, did she downshift and decompress?

She didn’t, and therein lies where she fucked up. “I had no comedown,” SZA, born Solána Imani Rowe, says in a tone that registers as half-amused, half-disappointed in herself. “I came back and I just went right into some bullshit. I don’t know why I’m back in the studio making a whole other album, just doing a whole bunch of shit. Spending time outside of my house for days at a time. I feel so frazzled.”