SZA’s album CTRL is a heavy favorite to end up on many critic’s “Best-Of” lists by the end of this year. So, it’s a little surprising to learn that the album that so many of us have to come to love and enjoy wasn’t fully finished by the time it ended up out in the general public.
In a new interview with The Guardian, SZA revealed that her label TDE might have interceded without her knowing and took the masters out of her safe. “They cut me off,” she said. “They just took my hard drive from me. That was all. I just kept f*cking everything up. I just kept moving sh*t around. I was choosing from 150, 200 songs, so I’m just like, who knows what’s good any more?”
What’s really crazy to think about is CTRL might’ve sounded totally unrecognizable from the version that’s out now had SZA been afforded more time to play around with it. “Any longer and I probably wouldn’t … I’m also driving myself f*cking crazy, so I don’t know. Give me another month and it would have been something completely different.”
That being said, it seems like a weight has been lifted from off her shoulders trying to meet all the expectations that fans had loaded onto her in anticipation of CTRL. In fact, she already seems to be looking forward to creating her next record. “I have less anxiety about the things that hindered me putting this album out, so I’ll probably be done in the next six months.”
