SZA
When: 15th June 2023
Location: OVO Hydro
SZA brings her highly successful S.O.S Tour to the UK. Coming to Glasgow’s OVO Hydro on 15th June 2023.
Following her incredibly successful 17-city sold out stateside run, Grammy-award-winning music trendsetter SZA will extend her touring trek to Europe in June 2023, stopping at Manchester and Glasgow before two nights at London’s 02 Arena.
The tour follows SZA’s lauded sophomore album, SOS, which was released back in December 2022 and earned Solána Imani Rowe the record for the largest streaming week for an R&B album in the United States. The album also claimed ten non-consecutive weeks at No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart – the most among albums by women in seven years.
During the first run of the S.O.S. Tour earlier this year, the platinum recording artist performed classics such as ‘Love Galore’ and ‘The Weekend’ in addition to newer mega-hits including ‘Kill Bill,’ and ‘Shirt.’ The New York Times called her Maddison Square Garden headline debut “vigorous, confident, theatrical and intimate — the sort of show that manages the rare trick of feeling both vibrantly communicative
and also protectively insular.” Fans also got to experience special performances from a number of surprise guests including Phoebe Bridgers, Cardi B, Summer Walker and Lizzo. Support for her UK dates comes from London-born breakout star RAYE.
An American Music Award, a Grammy, a Guild of Music Supervisors Award. Two awards from Billboard Women in Music (including Woman of the Year) and nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Brit Award. These are just some of the accolades that the American artist SZA has received in her still fairly short career.
Born in St Louis
Rowe was born in St. Louis in 1989 before moving to New Jersey, where she would excel in gymnastics and cheerleading in high school and major in marine biology later in college. But in the early 2010s, she ventured down a musical path and quickly established herself as an artist to keep an eye, and ear, on. She is influenced by everything from Billie Holiday and Björk to Wu-Tang Clan, whose mastermind RZA also inspired her stage name, and her music never adheres to a specific formula.
SZA self-released two EP’s, See.SZA.Run (2012) and S (2013) before signing to hip hop record label Top Dawg Entertainment who had had the young star on their radar for a while. Her label debut, the EP Z, landed in 2014 and that same year SZA co-wrote ‘Feeling Myself’ with Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé. She has since added names like Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, DJ Khaled, Doja Cat and Justin Timberlake to her list of powerhouse collaborators.
In 2017, SZA released her debut studio album, Ctrl, which not only received universal critical acclaim but also became the second longest-charting R&B album by a woman in the history of the US Billboard 200 and was since certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Not to mention the four nominations it earned at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards and its placement on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2020.
Second Album
It would take five years before SZA followed up on the successful debut with another full-length but that did not mean that she left her fans hanging. Not only did she release 16 singles and collabs – one being the Oscar-nominated Black Panther track ‘All the Stars’ with Kendrick Lamar – but also wrote hundreds of songs which were then narrowed down to the 23 that can be found on SOS. The sophomore album truly cements SZA as a generational talent with an ability to translate her innermost feelings into truly unforgettable, musical moments.
