Sza’s Hit Different, Hits Different

I can safely say I am a lover of SZA.

Sza’s debut album, “Ctrl,” was the soundtrack to my life on the Kingston university campus. I was struck by a female voice so startling in her honesty and vulnerability. Her airy vocals weaved a tale of heartbreak, insecurities, female sensuality, infidelities and struggling to find herself through her 20s.

In Supermodel she assures her lover that “I could be your Supermodel if you believe.” The unhealthy codependency she has on her lover becomes apparent throughout the song when she ask herself “Why I can’t stay alone just by myself” “Wish I was comfortable just with myself, but I need you, but I need you, but I need you.”

In my favourite song from the album Drew Barrymore, her insecurities about her attractiveness are again on full display. She asks her lover erotically, “Am I warm enough for you?” the question tying her worth in a relationship to the warmth of her body. And the next line, her heartbreaking admission that “I get so lonely I forget what I’m worth, we get so lonely we pretend that this works.” She admits the shame she feels within herself for her actions and dependency, “I’m so ashamed of myself think I need therapy.”

The exposure of herself like this both shocked and resonated with 2017 me, in my little dorm on campus and many women and men. The album was nominated for four Grammy Awards, and SZA nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist (an award she was robbed of but I digress)

I could go on and on about this masterpiece of female vulnerability but this is not a Ctrl album review.

For the three years since Ctrl, we have been eagerly anticipating another drop from Sza. On September 4 she finally released her new single Hit Different featuring Ty Dolla Sign.

The song is a vibe. The pace it steady, sultry, smooth and slow moving. Spin. com describes the song as kicking off “with Pharrell’s classic four-count start and works its way into a repeated line from the king of features himself in Ty [Dollar Sign]”

Again Sza explores interpersonal relationships, the song exploring the actions of a distant lover. The imagery is rich; one scene she is dancing in denim in a junkyard, she is also featured in a barn filled with white animals; in an empty field; on top of a haystack wearing an oversized tie-dye shirt. Throughout the video, flashes of her covered in blood appear. She refers to the blooded images on her Instagram as “Rebirth Entropy. beauty. chaos. Devine feminine.” At one point she even incorporates karate in the choreography. Her dancers circle around her while they take the horse stance, punching as rhythmically as one could punch in a music video. 

I do not know if this was intentional but I thought of menstruation when I first saw the blooded images and not in any negative way but in a way of reclaiming and appreciating all aspects of femininity.

Towards the second half of the video, the song changes to a different, unreleased song where she laments in her husky vocals “…I’ve been on my empty mindset, I should have kept from loosing the best of me, it would be that I wasted the best of me on you baby you don’t care.” If this single is any indication of the album in store it appears she has not shied away from vulnerability in the least in the three years since Ctrl. A vulnerability we can all draw something from. 

Sis SLAYED the look in this excerpt, her lids and lips glossy, sporting a swimsuit and beautiful braids with thick wooden beads.

Hit Different is also Sza’s directorial debut. I hope she directs more of her videos because both the look and feel of it is of a refreshing summer ballad.

What are your thoughts on Sza? Do you like her new single? What’s your favourite Sza song to date? Let me know in the comments below!