SZA Gives Chappell Roan the Divine Answer

SZA has a lot on her mind—heartache, power, alienation, desire, revenge, god, water, sex, death, legacy. Across two flawless albums, Ctrl and SOS, the New Jersey native has built one of pop’s most devoted fan bases, casting spells with uncensored songs that cut as deep as the ocean that inspires so much of her work. Before hitting the road with Kendrick Lamar on the Grand National Tour, she got on the line with Chappell Roan, a kindred spirit in search of the method behind her magic.

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MONDAY 1 PM APRIL 7, 2025 LITITZ, PA

SZA: Hello?

CHAPPELL ROAN: Hi! It’s nice to meet you.

SZA: So nice to meet you too! I hated that I saw you for the first time in person in the most excruciating public space possible. I would love to meet you in a way less awkward space. And thank you for agreeing to do this. I really like your mind, beyond just musically. I like the way you think, and I like the way that you exemplify critical thought.

ROAN: Ooh!

SZA: I really am honored to talk to you about anything you want. So, literally, if you want to talk about socks for 40 minutes, I will dive into my deepest Rolodex of sock knowledge.

ROAN: [Laughs] Thank you so much for saying that. It is so mutual. I love you so much.

SZA: That’s so hard to believe.

ROAN: Girl, believe it. You’re my top artist on Spotify.

SZA: Oh my god!

ROAN: But I really needed to dive into your interviews over the past two years.

SZA: Oh no!

ROAN: It’s lame when people ask me the same questions over and over again, so I tried to pull some stuff.

SZA: Thank you for taking the time to do that. I would’ve for sure answered the same shit over again for you.

ROAN: No, no. We need the girls to do some research. You want to know my first question?

SZA: Yes.

ROAN: Do you believe in fairies?

SZA: I do. For a while, I was like, “Am I fae?” True Blood did a number on me, because if we’re thinking about the proverbial sense of fae, then it’s like, I too be fucking niggas and having odd powers and being drawn to people trying to suck my energy dry, but we love each other and we can’t stop. You know how Sookie [Stackhouse] always used to attract the absolute fucking worst, but somehow know how to get herself out of it with the intrinsic, endowed power that she got from her tribe? I relate to that. Are you a fairy?

ROAN: I’ll get there. Do you believe in magic?

SZA: I do. I feel like everything is magic.

ROAN: Do you find magic outside of your art, just in daily life?

SZA: Oh, all the time. I believe that there’s no body of water that I can be around and not catch a message about something. Especially if it’s a waterfall. Any moving water. Water is alive. It’s a conscious, sentient force. It holds memory. We can only drink one percent of it even though we’re made of it, and it’s all over the fucking world. And I find that water is my conduit for messaging and energy. When I dropped my album, I gave so much to the ocean. I go to the ocean all the time and I laugh and eat cakes and brownies and then give them to her. I’m not even kidding.

ROAN: [Laughs] Yes!

SZA: And I went to the river, where, if I want to talk about love or beauty, then I think about Oshun, who’s the Yoruba deity of fertility and beauty and youth and love and abundance. So when I think about, like, “Damn, I have this really big beauty thing coming up,” or, “I really would love to get fucked and find love,” I write it down on a piece of paper and put it in the river.

ROAN: As a child, were you like that, too?

SZA: I was a freakazoid. I struggled to find friends because I’d just be talking about all this mystical shit, but it’s also from watching a lot of Xena[: Warrior Princess] and Hercules[: The Legendary Journeys] and Buffy [the Vampire Slayer]. It just cooked me, real bad. I was reading about Akashic records at like seven, so I was like, “Do you guys want to call Akasha?” And everybody was like, “You’re so fucking weird, and I’m scared of you.”

ROAN: Do you find it easier to make friends now because you know exactly what you’re looking for? Or is it still kind of hard to find those people?

SZA: Yesterday, I spoke to this girl, and she was talking about a new friend she made in Vegas. I couldn’t believe that she was out making new friends, because, while I love meeting new people, I’ve never tried to actively make a friend. It’s more so that I’m oddly drawn to this one person, and I can’t stop contacting them. And if they feel the same, then we be hanging out. But if I think about it consciously, I might even have a fear of making new friends. When I’m in a great mood, I’m hella personable. But at the same time, I don’t know. It’s weird. Me and Lizzo, we’ve been friends since, like, 2013, but it was very organic and very random. One day we were on the same tour, and I was like, “We’re about to drive out to Lake Michigan, do you want to come?” And she was like, “Yeah, let’s go.” And then we just got drunk and hung out, and we kept doing that, and then our lives and careers progressed, and we kept talking and hanging out. The other day, I went over to her house. My tummy was hurting because I ate too much, and she gave me a muumuu, and we just laid in the yard and did nothing, and I was like, “Yeah, this is what the fuck friendship is about.”

ROAN: Mm-hmm. It’s quite obvious that you are spiritual. You’re so connected with your curiosity. I love when people are connected to curiosity.

SZA: It’s so good.

ROAN: I’m glad I was curious enough to find out if me being gay, or me being curious to walk into a drag bar—that’s what got me here, my curiosity. Curiosity and spirituality go hand in hand. How did that change for you throughout fame and releasing music? Because there’s a point, I’m sure you know, when you’re not the underdog anymore.

SZA: I always feel like the underdog.

ROAN: You feel like the underdog?

SZA: Literally always. But that could be an internal feeling.

ROAN: Mm-hmm.

SZA: I don’t know. My curiosity has led me to want to discover what’s next, or to see if I can dig myself out of the weird, self-deprecating hole that comes from being in this business. Because it’s also like, what is happening, ever? I never really know what the fuck is going on. You have to use your intuition and your magic to see below the surface.

ROAN: Yeah.

SZA: My curiosity outweighing my fear is the only thing that keeps. me going. Even the stadium tour—I’ve never been on a fucking stadium tour before. There’s so much fear. “Am I going to feel the crowd so far away from me versus being in a smaller venue? There’s no top on the venue, so where’s the energy going to bounce off of? Am I going to be able to catch it and release it and flip it? I’m too curious about what it’s going to be like to go up in that harness and too curious about what it’s going to be like to really give my best Tina Turner impression. I just have to follow the thread.” For real, for real. I don’t know if that even answers your question. I’m so sorry.

ROAN: No, no, no, it does! When I said the underdog, I meant at some point, certain artists become known. You’re at the Grammys. You’re able to sell out your own tour. You’re not the little guy any- more. But I do know what you mean about feeling like the underdog internally, because I feel like I don’t have any of this shit figured out, and it makes me feel so good to hear you be like, “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, bitch.” I’m so glad you say that because I feel like that every day. That’s why I ask if your spirituality changed throughout fame and releasing music.

SZA: It changed so much. I used to make fun of all the hyper-spiritual girlies. Let’s be super clear. I’m hella guilty of that. Being like, “I’m never going to be a blue lipstick girlie.” This is like 12 years ago. I was running from all the things that were calling me. And then things started happening that were inexplicable and spiritually profound. Like people dying. Then I started diving into weird spiritual processes, or setting up an altar for the first time and saying prayers. I was following my natural intuition, and I found myself looking for external validation, like going to a shaman or a tarot reader. As time went on, I found that god, or the universe, whatever you want to call it, kept trying to show me that I have to stop trying to find my answer externally.

ROAN: Right.

SZA: There is no guru that can lead me to this divine answer. Further in my career, I was like, “I talked to this astrologer, and she was like, ‘Drop these three songs because your moon is in Pisces, and the moon is shifting.’” That worked, so I’ll ask her again. Or, I talked to a padrino, and he was like, “Just say this seven times and wash with this soap.” And that worked. Sometimes things would come to fruition; sometimes they wouldn’t. I think I was learning the laws of magic—what didn’t need to be messed with, which is love, death, and the unfolding of your own personal destiny. I wanted to know every single thing that was about to happen to me. It was terrifying to wonder what was going to happen to me next, because every second felt like I was dying. Every time I had to go on stage, every time I had to get on a carpet, I’d have full-on panic attacks. But now it’s like, “I’m kind of curious where this is going to go.”

ROAN: Mm-hmm.

SZA: I used to not show up to something because it was like, “I’m never going to win. No one cares that I’m here. Why would I go?” But now it’s just like, “Fuck it. I don’t have anything else to do, and I want to see where this door is going to lead.” Same thing with the Kendrick tour. “Everybody’s going to see Kendrick. I don’t even know if I have anything to show these people that’s exciting and new.” But I’m just like, “Fuck it. I want to walk through the door. I want to see what happens in the uncertainty.” That’s the true magic.

ROAN: Wow. That was a lovely answer. I love to hear the ins and outs of it. You were saying you were a weird child. I was as well. What is the weirdest thing that you did as a child?

SZA: Oh my god. I can give you a few.

ROAN: Okay, go ahead.

SZA: I used to collect little secrets and clues about everybody’s life that they weren’t saying out loud and then keep them in manila folders in a filling cabinet. Everyone had their own folder.

ROAN: [Laughs]

SZA: I found a business card for a strip club in my dad’s coat, but I didn’t say anything to him or anyone else. But I put it in the manila folder. Or I saw Mrs. Murphy smoking a cigarette and having a conversation that I shouldn’t have been privy to, in the back of the cafeteria, and I put that in the folder.

ROAN: Ooh!

SZA: It was literally just because I was being a diabolical freak. It was pre–Harriet the Spy. I would write it down in the notebook and keep the manila folder. And then, once I saw Harriet the Spy, I’m like, “Oh, this is full justification that this is normal.”

ROAN: I was into spy stuff. I don’t think that’s weird.

SZA: I needed it to be insidious.

ROAN: Right.

SZA: It had to be, like, true tea. It had to be something that was racy. It just made me feel like, “Even though we may not know each other, I know you, and you’re human, too. I could prove it if you ever asked me to.” [Laughs]

ROAN: When you were little, were you like, “I know more than every single child in this class”?

SZA: Absolutely.

ROAN: You were like, “I am special.” but what the fuck is going on upstairs in the closet?”

SZA: Christianity is so witchy, by the way. It’s hella esoteric.

ROAN: Speak on it.

SZA: The Bible is a spell.

ROAN: Ooh!

SZA: Spelling is a spell, and you’re binding yourself to whatever entity you call in. So it’s like you are consciously binding yourself to Jesus Christ. And I feel that in the realm of magic or in the realm of spirituality, when you call in any entity, and you swear your allegiance to it, then that’s a ceremony. Is it not? Please continue.

ROAN: [Laughs] No, I love to hear this.

SZA: It’s very binding.

ROAN: Hey, look, I’m with you. I don’t know who else is, but I’m with you.

SZA: Let me rephrase it before they come and get me.

ROAN: Rephrase it.

SZA: I’m not saying Christianity is witchcraft. I’m saying that Christianity, and pretty much all religions, are an expression of the laws of magic. Nothing escapes the laws of magic, period. There’s nothing you can do or say to make you feel so separate from the laws of how this shit works. I guess that’s why I respect everybody’s practice, because I believe it’s all real. Anything you put energy, intention, and attention into with consistency and devotion will 100 percent materialize. I don’t give a fuck if it’s a broomstick.

ROAN: Mm-hmm. So what do you have to say to all the weird children out there? Especially those dabbling in spy shit. And all the spiritual fairy girls?

SZA: To all the girls who feel like you don’t know what’s going on—you don’t have to. I know it’s super isolating now, but I promise this isn’t all there is. I’m from a small town and went to a suburban school with uppity children. I felt so separate, like I’d never find a place where I belonged. But it’s so much more fun to carve out your own space. Keep building your world until you get out of the one that you’re trapped in right now. That’s just a facade. There’s people who are counting on you. I’m counting on you. I needed you, Chappell. I needed Doja, I needed Doechii, I needed Aliyah’s Interlude. It’s very, very important to not give a fuck and keep being as weird as you can, so when you get out of that tiny space, you have somewhere to rest yourself. You have a home that you built for yourself, and it might be wonky and crooked and super weird, but it will become a home.

ROAN: Good words for the fairy girls. I need you, too. This is such an honor.

SZA: I’m so inspired by you. I know I said it via DM, but you’re setting a precedent for women and for artists all around. And I think it’s very, very important that you continue saying that shit and speaking for all of us. I’m always surprised and warmed by the agency you have over yourself and over this space. I hope you’re doing it the way that you want to do it. Do you feel that way?

ROAN: I think so. I think that I’m doing it the way I want to, but not everyone likes that. I will yell at a bitch on the carpet. I think that right now in my career, I’m just trying to see if the way I’ve been doing it is sustainable. Am I okay with the backlash of speaking my mind? That’s where I am right now.

SZA: I guess I wondered if you gave a fuck about the backlash.

ROAN: I didn’t, until people started hating me for me and not for my art. When it’s not about my art anymore, it’s like, “They hate me because I’m Kayleigh, not because they hate the songs that I make.” That’s when it changed.

SZA: Well, they literally don’t know Kayleigh.

ROAN: Exactly. They don’t. But when things are taken out of context, people assume so much about you. I didn’t realize I’d care so much. When it comes to my art, I’m like, “Bitch, you can think whatever you want. You are allowed to hate it with all your guts.” But when it comes to me and my personality, it’s like, “Damn. Am I the most insufferable bitch of our generation?” [Laughs]

SZA: No, because if you are, then I really am. It’s comforting to know that you give a fuck, because from the outside, you can come off as so superhuman. It’s like, “Oh, she really must not give a fuck at all.”

ROAN: No, I give a fuck.

SZA: You do, and that’s beautiful.

ROAN: And it makes me cry. I don’t know if it will ever feel okay to hear someone say something really hateful about me.

SZA: That’s so real! Oh my god. I feel deeply relieved by what you just said because I felt like I was a punk bitch for feeling the way that I feel, because I’m just like, “Oh, maybe I’m just not cut out for this shit.” Because everybody else who’s cut out for this shit doesn’t give a fuck. But that’s not true.

ROAN: I know.

SZA: Maybe everybody secretly gives a fuck. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care what people were saying about me, but it was so weird that I was being misperceived so far from who I am. But it was also just like, when you’re seen in these tiny vacuums of the most intense moments of your life, it’s a pressure cooker. Then it’s like, “Okay, this hour’s over, and you just met 35 people in the worst emotional state that you could possibly be in, and they’re all going to take this with them and be like, ‘Yep, that’s who the fuck she is.’ And we’re going to tell other people that this is who she is, also.” But it has no reflection on who I really am. You don’t get another time to make a second impression. People just take that shit and go and build your identity. And it’s excruciating, and it’s hurtful, and it is devastating. And I do be crying. And I needed you to say that. Thank you.

ROAN: No, thank you.

SZA: I wish I got to interview you just as a person, not even for a magazine, just because I have so many questions for you.

ROAN: [Laughs] Thanks.

SZA: If you’ll ever allow me to just talk to you and pick your brain about shit, I would love that.

ROAN: Oh my god, it’s so mutual. I’m so, so grateful. Thank you again for asking me to interview you.

SZA: Of course. And thank you for saying yes.

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Hair: Devante Turnbull using K18.

Makeup: Deanna Paley and Naezrah using Not Beauty.

Nails: Tomoya Nakagawa at Vanity Projects.

Set Design: Nicholas Des Jardins at Streeters.

Tailor: Carol Ai.

Market Director: Lucy Gaston.

Photography Assistant: Stefy Lin.

Fashion Assistants: Nicholson Baird, Abby McDade, Sophie Bohmeier, India Josephson and Jaden James.

Nail Assistant: Mutsuko Nakayama.

Set Assistant: Andrew Riley.

Production: The Morrison Group.

Production Management: Georgia Ford.

Production Assistant: Jordan Santisteban.

Animal courtesy of: All Creatures Great & Small.