TDE's first lady SZA is making her mark in hip-hop history, standing strong as the only female in the crew. Even without a debut studio album, SZA, has already offered her talents to some of the biggest names in music. In a recent interview Hit-Boy shared that SZA helped write Nicki Minaj and Beyonce's record, Feeling Myself. Hit the flip to see what SZA had to say about the writing process.......
On Willow Smith:
TL: What’s it been like having Willow Smith out on tour?
SZA: She’s a genius, she’s just an amazing human being. I don’t even want to say little girl because that’s so demeaning for what she is. She’s so incredible and I think it has a lot to do with exposure. I wish more kids could even get that ounce of exposure, but I think she will inspire kids to want to look for themselves since they can’t get exposure from their circumstances to just want to branch out because it’s possible. She’s on some other shit but she’s dope, it’s not an act, it’s authentic as hell.
TL: What advice would you give young artists starting out in the music industry right now?
SZA: I would say don’t let people psych you out, someone will always try to psych you out even if they’re not trying to. Someone just being themselves saying some shit that don’t fit in your brain, it will fuck you up. Ignore everyone and don’t let anyone psych you out so at least if you fail you fail by your own hands. That’s what happened to me, I literally did some hard-headed shit and when everyone told me to go one way I went the opposite and pissed a lot of people off but at the end of the day I made some relationships that I will never lose and are just so important to me like mine with Punch. That was a stupid decision, I drove 35 hours from New York City with no money. [laughs]
On writing 'Feeling Myself':
TL: I also recently saw that Hit-Boy shouted you out in an interview with Revolt TV saying that you helped write Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé’s “Feeling Myself.”
SZA: Yeah, I wrote parts of that. A nice chunk of that [laughs], I’m on the credits so I think it’s really interesting. It was dope meeting Beyoncé, she’s tight, she’s perfect actually.
TL: How did that come about?
SZA: Um, I have no idea. Literally like on God it was something I could never explain to anyone. The call just got put in and then I arrived [laughs], I have no idea. Hit-Boy produced and I wrote the lyrics so Nicki (Minaj) and Beyoncé are singing some of the things that I wrote to it. But him (Hit-Boy) and I just work really well together like we vibe together just because he’s such a cool kid. He’s not pretentious at all, for as accomplished as he is he’s just super welcoming and drinks like chocolate milk all day, honestly the nicest kid.
Singing vs. Songwriting:
TL: So I’ll wrap it up here with one last one, if you had to choose between singing and songwriting what would you choose?
SZA: Songwriting. I don’t know, I just feel like I would have an issue with singing someone else’s words because to this day I have never sang another persons words, which is definitely at times a pitfall because you can get very monotonous like in your own head and very redundant. But I don’t know, if I could just keep writing I feel like I could just sing it to myself and at least have the moment but if I’m just singing like what the fuck am I going to sing about? Barney and friends? Who knows, like you could be singing about McDonald’s if you leave it to these crazy people.
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