The “CTRL” button on a computer keyboard is a modifier. It performs a variety of functions depending on the other keyboard buttons that it is pressed in conjunction with. A dedicated recording artist, is in similar fashion, an agent of adaptation. This is because they are able to transform the musical soundscapes that they are partnered with by infusing them with their own unique combination lyrical honesty and artistic vulnerability. The 26-year-old First Lady of Top Dawg Entertainment, SZA, accomplishes this with her album debut, CTRL. The 14-track project wonderfully showcases the jazzy, raspy-voiced millennial’s razor-sharp wit (“Doves In the Wind” featuring Kendrick Lamar ) and emotional depth (“Garden”) with sonic subtleties that venerate the principle of cohesion. In the current digital era, computer-generated social capital isn’t an anomaly. It’s the cultural standard. However SZA artfully pushes the computer screen static to the background and offers us something wholly organic that we can feel.
Selling 60,000 units (25,000 which came from album sales, the rest from streaming), SZA landed behind Katy Perry — whose Witness album sold 180,000 copies, the biggest debut for a woman so far in 2017 — and her labelmate Kendrick Lamar with his wildly successful album “DAMN”
-Adika Butler
