R&B/HIP-HOP
SZA, "SOS" (RCA)
SZA bookends her enthralling sophomore album with a pair of boom-bappy hip-hop tracks in which she raps as ferociously as anyone has this year. On the opening title track, the R&B singer announces her first LP in five years by comparing herself to Tom Brady and Kevin Durant; in the closer, "Forgiveless," she looks for competition but can't find any.
Both songs show off a rhythmic acuity and a nimbleness of flow that put the 33-year-old close to Beyoncé and Lauryn Hill in the pantheon of female singers with the hardest of bars. A third rap cut at the midpoint of this 23-track set might be the most stank-face-inducing of all. "Smoking on My Ex Pack" is such a jolt because it comes amid a series of delicate acoustic tunes in which SZA lays bare her most intimate anxieties.
SZA's range is astounding — the different ways she uses her voice and the different ways she frames her stories of disappointment and dissatisfaction. In its emotional sprawl — not to mention its assortment of styles, from dusty soul to trippy psychedelic rock — "SOS" evokes natural memories of Hill and Beyoncé. All those strummed guitars, though, can also make you think about Taylor Swift's "Red."
Like Swift, SZA writes with pinprick precision about the illusions that prop up ideas of romance. Unlike Swift, SZA seems not at all to enjoy the celebrity her insights have brought her.
Her introspective bent is crucial to land on such confessions as "I hate me enough for the two of us," in "F2F." SZA is so adept at funneling the mess of her feelings into vivid bursts of hooks, beats and words. In the devastating "Special," she's unsparing in her self-assessment: "I got pimples where my beauty marks should be." On the gorgeous "Open Arms," she's in so deep with the wrong guy that she wonders, "Who needs self-esteem anyway?"
SZA's real genius is that the album floats by thanks to her sense of humor and wonderfully asymmetric melodies. Because her singing is so conversational, you always stick with her to find out.
