SZA Says She’s Only Defined As A “R&B” Artist Because She’s Black

SZA Believes She’s Only Defined As A “R&B” Artist Because She’s Black: “Justin Bieber Is Not Considered R&B”

During a recent interview with DAZED Magazine, Grammy award-winning artist SZA, opened up about how she often feels confined to one genre based on the labels people put on her music.

If you listen to SZA’s discography, she has a little bit of everything in there, but SZA believes she’s always labeled an “R&B” artist simply because she’s black.

“The only reason I’m defined as an R&B artist is because I’m Black,” SZA said to the Magazine. “It’s almost a little reductive because it doesn’t allow space to be anything else or try anything else. Justin Bieber is not considered an R&B artist; he is a pop artist who makes R&B, folk music, or whatever his heart desires.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by The Neighborhood Talk (@theneighborhoodtalk)

She continued, “I simply just want to be allowed the same opportunity to make whatever I want without a label, [without it being] based on the colour of my skin, or the crew that I run with, or the beats that I choose. I want “F2F” to be seen as what it is. I want “Nobody Gets Me” to be seen as what it is. I want “Kill Bill” to be seen as what it is.”

“At the same time, it’s nothing to get bent out of shape about, because it’s just how people are processing you. As long as I don’t process myself that way. I don’t necessarily box myself into anything. I’m just trying to make music, trying to vibe out and enjoy the experience.”

“It’s so strange! Once we’re dead and gone, there will still be work to do in terms of how we’re seen in the world as Black women, and who we are allowed to be seen as – the multifacetedness and all our spectrums of expression.”

The singer added, “I think humanity will be constantly unfolding itself, and we will be showing each other who we are beyond the reductive labels our brains are regurgitating, from whatever we saw on the internet or learned in college or at home through socialisation. We’ll get beyond that, and that’s just part of being human. I’m down to be human.”

Fans have since been reacting to the interview. “After she done snatched all them ppl R&B awards now she don’t wanna be it,” someone commented. “The best R&B artists never want to carry the R&B torch fr,” another person wrote.