This whole album had me, can have you and yo momma, feeling like she’s reading your entire life. - Mia Haskins
SZA’s Ctrl debuted number three on the Billboard 200 , and has been one of the hottest albums this year for all women. Regardless of race, you could find a song that perfectly relates to you. SZA released her first single,“Drew Barrymore” in January,and shortly after she released “Love Galore” (ft Travis Scott) in April. She’s became more known for her song “The Weekend”, which has a groovy night with the girls on your apartment roof top drunk of wine vibe to it that makes you want to slow dance in front of a huge fan like Beyonce. The song speaks about being the sidechick and only having the man on the weekend and in the chorus it says, “my man is my man is your man heard that’s her man.” She continues,“You like 9-5 I’m the weekend.” In times of social media and there’s no such thing as a healthy relationship for people ages 15-25, being someone's side chick is very much normal. I believe that’s one of the main reasons this song got so much attention because millions of people related on a personal level.
Solána Imani Rowe, also known as SZA, is a r&b singer. She was born November 8th, 1990 in St. Louis, Missouri before later moving to Maplewood, New Jersey. She was raised in a orthodox Muslim home and raised by a Muslim father and Christian mother. As a young girl she wore a hijab and attended Muslim prep school after regular school everyday. Shortly after 9/11 she was bullied and forced into removing her hijab for personal safety. After high school, she attended Essex County College to study liberal arts. Those wondering where her monicker SZA” originated from, look no further than the Supreme Alphabet,which serves for finding deeper meaning within the roman alphabet, created by Elijah Muhammad and Wallace Fard. The last two letters in her name (Z & A) stand for zigzag and Allah, and the (S) she came up with herself changing it from savior to sovereign.
One of my personal favorites is “Garden (Say it Like Dat).” I say this is my personal favorite because of her lyrics, “Lie to me and say my booty getting bigger even if it ain’t.” Let me tell you, when I said it spoke to my heart then touched my entire soul. I don’t have a whole lot back there and I felt like she knows me or my life. This whole album had me, can have you and yo momma, feeling like she’s reading your entire life. Throughout the song she’s going back and forth with the person from her previous relationship. The first verse she keeps referring back to how she needs them to get back to her old self. In the chorus she hopes that she’s getting they’re true self while also being hypocritical by saying “Hope you’ll never find out who I really am”. Now we’ve all been there when we don’t want the person that could potentially be our bae to see the weird side of you that you only let family and friends see. At the end of the song it's a clip of her talking to her grandmother about her experiences with people disliking her and how she dealt with them. She said it in the simplest form “If you don't like me, you don't have to fool with me You don't have to talk about me or treat me mean,I don't have to treat you mean.” I think that’s something important everyone needs to learn in live.
The very last song on the album is titled “20 Something” it speaks about being in her twenties and not having the ‘adult’ things accomplished. In the first verse she mentions that much of her time was wasted by her significant other not telling her their emotions. The pre chorus she breaks down the things she dosen’t have in order in the following lyrics “How could it be? 20 something, all alone still not a thing in my name.” I see as the opposite in your early twenties it’s all about living it up and not being tied down and your late twenties are for finding your life partners. The chorus repeats about being stuck in her “20 somethings”and hoping that all is well at the end. The song ends with her mom giving her advices about life and her intake on Ctrl-the album and the meaning “And if it's an illusion, I don't want to wake up. I'm gonna hang on to it. Because the alternative is an abyss, is just a hole, a darkness, a nothingness. Who wants that? You know? So that's what I think about CTRL, and that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.” CTRL has been an album that’s made an impact to my teenage love life and I hope it’s done the same to some of you.
One of my personal favorites is “Garden (Say it Like Dat).” I say this is my personal favorite because of her lyrics, “Lie to me and say my booty getting bigger even if it ain’t.” Let me tell you, when I said it spoke to my heart then touched my entire soul. I don’t have a whole lot back there and I felt like she knows me or my life. This whole album had me, can have you and yo momma, feeling like she’s reading your entire life. Throughout the song she’s going back and forth with the person from her previous relationship. The first verse she keeps referring back to how she needs them to get back to her old self. In the chorus she hopes that she’s getting they’re true self while also being hypocritical by saying “Hope you’ll never find out who I really am”. Now we’ve all been there when we don’t want the person that could potentially be our bae to see the weird side of you that you only let family and friends see. At the end of the song it's a clip of her talking to her grandmother about her experiences with people disliking her and how she dealt with them. She said it in the simplest form “If you don't like me, you don't have to fool with me You don't have to talk about me or treat me mean,I don't have to treat you mean.” I think that’s something important everyone needs to learn in live.
The very last song on the album is titled “20 Something” it speaks about being in her twenties and not having the ‘adult’ things accomplished. In the first verse she mentions that much of her time was wasted by her significant other not telling her their emotions. The pre chorus she breaks down the things she dosen’t have in order in the following lyrics “How could it be? 20 something, all alone still not a thing in my name.” I see as the opposite in your early twenties it’s all about living it up and not being tied down and your late twenties are for finding your life partners. The chorus repeats about being stuck in her “20 somethings”and hoping that all is well at the end. The song ends with her mom giving her advices about life and her intake on Ctrl-the album and the meaning “And if it's an illusion, I don't want to wake up. I'm gonna hang on to it. Because the alternative is an abyss, is just a hole, a darkness, a nothingness. Who wants that? You know? So that's what I think about CTRL, and that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.” CTRL has been an album that’s made an impact to my teenage love life and I hope it’s done the same to some of you.
