SZA

Solàna Imani Rowe was born on November 8, 1990, in St. Louis, Missouri, before later relocating to Maplewood, New Jersey, where she was raised. Her father was an executive producer at CNN, while her mother was an executive at AT&T. Rowe was born to a Christian mother and an African American Muslim father. She was raised as an "Orthodox Muslim", and has an older half-sister, Tiffany Daniels.She attended a "Muslim Prep-School" every day after her "Regular School". Rowe attended Columbia High School, where she was very active in sports, including gymnastics and cheerleading. However, due to the September 11 attacks, Rowe was subjected to bullying, leading her to stop wearing her hijab. As a high school sophomore, she was ranked among the best gymnasts in the United States.

After graduating from high school, Rowe later went to Essex County College to study liberal arts. She eventually dropped out and took random jobs in order to make money. Rowe formed her stage name from the Supreme Alphabet, taking influence from rapper RZA, the last two letters in her name stand for Zig-Zag and Allah, while the first letter Rowe says can mean either savior or sovereign

SZA first met members of Top Dawg Entertainment during the CMJ 2011, when her boyfriend's clothing company sponsored a show in which Kendrick Lamar was performing. Her early music was given to TDE president Terrence "Punch" Henderson, who liked the material and stayed in touch with her. SZA's early music was recorded with her friends and neighbors in which they "stole a bunch of beats off the Internet". On October 29, 2012, SZA self-released her debut EP See.SZA.Run.

On April 10, 2013, SZA released her second EP, S, which was met with positive reviews from music critics. SZA promoted the extended play with the release of a music video for the song "Ice Moon", directed by Lemar & Dauley. On July 14, 2013, it was announced that Top Dawg had signed SZA. In October 2013, SZA went on a four show tour with Swedish band Little Dragon; starting on October 17 at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles and ending on October 24 at the Music Hall of Williamsbug, Brooklyn, NY. In December 2013, SZA released the song "Teen Spirit" which was followed by the release of a remix featuring American rapper 50 Cent, along with a music video directed by APLUSFILMZ. In 2014, SZA featured on a variety of songs from her label-mates albums including two songs for Isaiah Rashad's debut EP Cilvia Demo as well as featuring on Schoolboy Q debut studio album Oxymoron.

On March 26, 2014, R&B artist SZA released the single "Child's Play" featuring Chance the Rapper and produced by Dae One & XXYYXX. Her debut studio EP, titled Z, was released on April 8, 2014 and was preceded by the release of the lead single, "Babylon", which was accompanied with a music video directed by APLUSFILMZ. To promote Z, SZA performed at several performance showcases at the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas. SZA made her chart debut in the UK, where Z charted at number thirty two, on the R&B Charts, during the week ending April 19, 2014. Z debuted on the US Billboard 200 at number thirty nine, selling 6,980 copies in its opening week; the album also peaked at number nine on the Billboard Hip-Hop/R&B chart.

In May 2014, SZA announced she was planning to embark on a local tour and also began recording her third EP entitled A. In July 2014, SZA featured on Kitty Cash's single "Moodring". Later that month, SZA released a collaboration with Jill Scott called "Divinity". On July 11, 2014, SZA released a video for her song "Julia" from Z. In early October, Jhene Aiko tweeted SZA, which led to speculation that the two would be working together; however on October 23, 2014, Aiko announced that she would be headlining a tour entitled "Enter The Void tour" which would be supported by SZA and The Internet. The tour began on December 12 at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, California. On November 18, 2014, SZA released a song called "Sobriety".

In September 2014, SZA revealed that A, initially planned as a third EP, would instead be released as her debut studio album. Whilst working on her debut album, SZA began writing songs for other artists including Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna. Along with Rihanna and Tyran Donaldson, SZA co-wrote a song entitled "Consideration", which was featured on Rihanna's eighth studio album Anti (2016); besides writing, SZA was also featured on the track. SZA later performed "Consideration" with Rihanna live for the first time at the 2016 Brit Awards on February 24, 2016.

In January 2017, SZA announced her debut album would be titled Ctrl, instead of A. Also that month, she performed the lead single from Ctrl, titled "Drew Barrymore", on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. On April 28, 2017, SZA announced that she had signed her first major-label recording contract with RCA Records.On June 9, 2017, SZA released her debut album, Ctrl, to universal acclaim from music critics, scoring an 86 out of 100 rating on Metacritic. Ctrl debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, with 60,000 album-equivalent units, of which 25,000 were pure album sales; the album was supported by several singles, including "Love Galore", which peaked in the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was later certified platinum. Ctrl was ranked as the best album of 2017 by Time.

On July 5, 2017, SZA announced an official North American headlining concert tour titled Ctrl the Tour, to further promote the album. The tour began on August 20, 2017, in Providence, Rhode Island, at Fête Music Hall, and is scheduled to conclude on December 22, 2017, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at The Fillmore Philadelphia.[43] Despite there being no European leg of the tour, on July 10, 2017, American singer and rapper Bryson Tiller announced that SZA would be opening for the European portion of his Set It Off Tour in support of his studio album True to Self from October 17, 2017, to November 30, 2017, separate from SZA's tour.

In August 2017, SZA collaborated with American pop rock band Maroon 5 on their single "What Lovers Do" from their sixth studio album. The single reached number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. The following month SZA released a song entitled "Quicksand", which appeared on the soundtrack for HBO's Insecure, and, alongside Khalid and Post Malone, was featured on the remix version of Lorde's single "Homemade Dynamite", from her second studio album Melodrama. Also in 2017, SZA announced that she had been working on a joint album with Mark Ronson and Tame Impala.

On November 28, 2017, SZA received five Grammy nominations including one for Best New Artist. She received the most nominations of any female artist for the 2018 Awards and was the fourth most nominated artist in total. Despite this, she did not end up winning any of the awards she was nominated for. This prompted many upset fans who felt that she had been snubbed to take to Twitter with the hashtag #JusticeForSZA.

In January 2018, SZA featured with Kendrick Lamar on the track All the Stars, which was released as the lead single to the soundtrack album of the Marvel Studios superhero film Black Panther.

On 5 April 2018, SZA collaborated with Cardi B on the single I Do from Cardi's album