Every championship team has its hurdles to overcome, and the TDE Championship Tour is no different. Last week, Top Dawg Entertainment founder Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith reported that SZA would be taking some time away from the tour for medical reasons, saying, “Her vocal chords [sic] are swollen and she have to rest her voice to prevent any permanent damage.” Now it turns out that permanent damage may have already been done.
In a series of tweets last night, SZA wrote that her voice is in fact permanently affected: “My voice is permanently injured . Great !!!!!!!!!!!!! YAYYYYYUUYH!!!!!!!!’n Tonight was the test . That settles that. I jus wanna be left alone my priorities are f-cked up . They been f-cked up . I need space goodbye .” The tweets have since been deleted, but were archived by Vulture.
At the time of Top Dawg’s statement, SZA also wrote, “I’ve been touring for 11 months. This didn’t happen overnight. I’ve been troubleshooting for a while now and usually steroids and pushing through help. They don’t this time. I’m not sick, my voice just won’t f-cking work. If I don’t pause now, I’ll be forced to pause permanently.”
Hopefully this isn’t career-altering news, but it’s also worth nothing that SZA has made big proclamations before that didn’t end up coming to pass. In 2016, she tweeted (and later deleted) that she was done with music, writing, “I actually quit.” Earlier this year, she also said she’s working on her “last album,” of course implying that there would be no more after her Ctrl follow-up.
