Day 8: SZA — CTRL
A good album title is one that encapsulates an overall idea or mood associated with the work. By that measure, CTRL provides a perfect window into what SZA hopes to find on her debut full-length album. From exposing her insecurities to flaunting her confidence and trying to find a place of peace in between, the 26-year-old singer takes us on a guided tour of her inner world, ultimately creating a cohesive body of work that’s more mellow and pleasant than melodramatically depressing.
From the opening notes of “Supermodel,” which almost sounds like someone picking up the guitar for the first time after hearing Blonde, you can tell CTRL will feel more organic and vulnerable than over-processed and guarded. A confession that she cheated on a now-ex lover with one of his homeboys as a sort of final “fuck you” halfway through the album’s first verse sets the tone that nothing is off-limits.
It shouldn’t come as a shock that a woman who grew up muslim in the United States would have identity on her mind in 2017. While that subject isn’t directly addressed, the album isn’t short on self-reflection. These twelve tracks read like a therapy session (alluding to as much at one point in the album) that covers the feelings of freedom and self-consciousness that come after leaving someone behind, the flaws we fixate on when we see ourselves through the eyes of others, and the constant battle to find a sense of self that isn’t driven solely by our insecurities.
On “Drew Barrymore,” SZA perfectly sums up our tendencies to seek comfort in others when we lose sight of who we are: “I get so lonely, I forget what I’m worth / we get so lonely we pretend that this works,” before launching into a litany of apologies to a lover. Later on “Garden (Say It Like Dat),” she lays bare the hypocrisy of asking a partner to bare their soul when we’re unwilling to do it ourselves: “Open your heart up/Hoping I’ll never find out that you’re anyone else/’Cause I love you just how you are/Hope you never find out who I really am/’Cause you’ll never love me”. There are plenty of instances where SZA feels confident enough to tell off those who want to waste her time, but just as many moments when she lets her insecurities get the best of her. The fact that those feelings exist simultaneously is part of what makes CTRL so startlingly human.
Fitting for such a confessional album, the production creates a sort of comfortable backdrop with enough variation and energy to keep the listener engaged without smothering SZA’s ideas. Things mostly stick to a mellow, southern-California neo-R&B sound that takes the template of Anderson .Paak and adds the tempo and texture of Frank Ocean’s Blonde. Top Dawg Entertainment’s in-house producer Scum had a hand in sculpting seven of CTRL’s 14 tracks, and TDE cohorts Kendrick Lamar and Isaiah Rashad make up half of the album’s minimal features list. Overall, the supporting cast of rappers and producers serves to brighten up what might’ve been a much darker album in less delicate hands.
A good album-closing track is one that distills the essence of everything that came before it into a singular message. On “20 Something,” SZA laments what was and what isn’t, but ultimately chooses to hold onto and even embrace the present moment for what it is. 2017 seems to be the year that hip hop artists and their peers in adjacent genres started bringing conversations about the state of mental health in the black community to the mainstream. There’s a sort of collective awakening happening where it’s okay to admit you’re damaged and wear your scars with pride, a sort of strength in surrendering to what is. It’s a conversation SZA joins directly on this poignant last track.
By that token, the ultimate takeaway from CTRL is that creating honest, personal music doesn’t make you a buzzkill, it makes you human. This is an album equally made for summer days and cold, dark nights. Like life, SZA offers us moments of joy, sadness, arrogance, and fear. Wishing things were any different is to reject her — and our — gift.
