If you were counting on a new SZA to carry you through Mercury retrograde, you’ll have to wait a little longer. After three of her new tracks were leaked earlier this year, SZA announced on Tuesday that she would be releasing those songs as part of a deluxe edition of her 2022 album SOS — but also, she’ll now be starting from scratch on her long-awaited new album, Lana.
As Variety reported on Wednesday, the singer tweeted, “Y’all leaked three songs from the deluxe. At this point, y’all can keep the throwaways and leaks. I’ll be starting ‘Lana’ from scratch. Do not ask me about it again.” She then added, “I’ll round up the leaks y’all already got and u can have those. Seems like a fair deal. ENJOY.” Both tweets have since been deleted.
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SZA then posted a follow-up thread, writing, “Will be dropping the leaks and outtakes from SOS as promised as the deluxe asap. Lana deserves more time and music no one’s ever heard before.” She directly called out an X user who appeared to run a SZA stan account, for leaking “unreleased pics and audio.”
“And please be clear anybody defending a thief is weird as fuck,” she wrote. “I don’t come in your job and take shit and fuck up your work . Why would that be okay? Where’s the home training ? Nobody wants to prosecute a young woman. We’ve all asked very nicely for some time now.”
It’s somewhat comforting that you can be an artist as acclaimed as SZA and still be Posting Through It in the most Scorpio way possible. But the artist also raises a good point about wanted to have ownership over one’s own work. After all, Taylor Swift is literally rerecording and rereleasing all of her albums so that they exist entirely on her own terms.
It’s also not as if SZA hasn’t made her feelings about leakers loud and clear. In a November interview with Variety, she said, “When people leak my songs, they ruin them. Then it’s not mine anymore; it’s actually yours. It’s something unfinished that you decided was ready to be shared. And it’s like, ‘Fuck you. Now I’m not releasing it.’ Play your leak, but you’re not gonna bully me into dropping music. I’m now embarrassed by this less-than-correct version that you put out. You’ve sent me into a weird space creatively when you could have just waited for me, but you’re selfish.” Leave it to her to make good on her word.
We just hope that we won’t have to wait five years for Lana like we did between the release of CTRL and SOS.
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