Singer SZA silently despised her debut album Ctrl while the world celebrated her talents.
The Love Galore hitmaker's first release reached listeners last summer (Jun17), earning her international acclaim and five Grammy nominations, but she admits she couldn't stand hearing the record.
"I didn’t even f**k with my own album, so I was so confused and almost, like, angry that everyone f**ked with it (liked it) so much,” she tells FADER. "It meant everything I felt about myself was wrong. And it was just like, 'If that’s not the truth, then what is the truth?'"
Interventions from her celebrity friends like rapper-and-actor Donald Glover also did little to change her mind and make her realise she had created a masterpiece.
"I think when Love Galore went platinum, Donald (Glover) texted me like, ‘Do you still think it sucks?'" she recalls. "And I was like, 'I dunno'."
Still unconvinced, SZA admits her personal standards are so high she rarely meets them.
“I’m thankful that people don’t think it (Ctrl) sucks, but I’m gonna have to achieve a 10 in my brain,” she explains.
Her first album was created over four years of songwriting, and as rumours suggesting SZA is already at work with top acts like Mark Ronson and rock band Tame Impala on a follow-up emerge, the 27-year-old has mixed feelings about how quickly her new music will be ready.
"S**t, if I could sit down and make one (record)...," she laughs, before backtracking with a tease: "No, no actually, 2018 just started. Definitely. Actually, I could do that s**t in six months," she says.
