One might think banking these sorts of rare achievements would have her celebrating. Hooded jacket, $260, shirt, tie, leg warmers, Luar. No other Black female artist has done that since the Whitney Houston–led Bodyguard soundtrack held the number one spot for 20 nonconsecutive weeks in 1992–1993. At the time of our interview, the double-platinum album had just finished a record-breaking run on the Billboard charts, spending 10 nonconsecutive weeks as the number one album in the country, making her the first solo female artist to have a streak like this since Adele’s album 25 was number one for 10 weeks back in 2015–2016. With 23 tracks (“I will never do that again,” SZA says, laughing), an ever-wider set of genre-bending sounds, and soul-bearing lyrical content, SOS takes the baton from its (five times Grammy-nominated) predecessor, Ctrl, runs with it, then smashes the sophomore curse to bits at the finish line. The fanfare makes sense when you consider the massive success that her album has garnered since its release. SZA (born Solána Imani Rowe) was probably the only person in the building that night surprised that her concert had become one of the hottest tickets in town. “Oh, Pedro Pascal, I was so excited about, because he’s on my favorite show, The Last of Us-and Narcos,” she adds. “You left the mansion to come to this, to slum it.” SZA says in disbelief while recalling the night. Among them were A-list celebrities like Adele, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Olivia Rodrigo, Pedro Pascal, and Avril Lavigne, who made the trek south to see the show.
Inside the arena, fans were screaming at Apple watch-alert decibels in anticipation of her hitting the stage. Outside the Forum, a huge digital billboard image of SZA starring in the latest Skims campaign sat high in the sky. It was the Grammy-winner’s first arena tour run and the increase of her star power was evident everywhere. I don’t know if I was more surprised that these California residents had the fortitude to withstand the rain earlier in the day, or by the fact that acquiring affordable seats online has become so hard that Gen Z is now forced to take part in the age-old Gen X ritual of camping out for concert tickets. They told me they had been in line all day, some with chairs and blankets, in hopes of getting whatever cheaper tickets may be released at the box office or by resellers once the show began. Making my way into the venue that evening, I asked one of the hordes of teens standing in line what they were doing out there, since it was just past 8 P.M. It was night one of two sold-out shows SZA would be performing to close out the first leg of her SOS Tour, and fans were lined up for miles in the streets surrounding Los Angeles’ Kia Forum.
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