Monday, January 23, 2023

SZA Tops Billboard 200 for Sixth Consecutive Week


SZA, 33, has only released two studio albums in her short career, but the Grammy Award-winning artist's recent performance on the Billboard album chart has her name being mentioned alongside some of music's greats.

"SOS" sold the equivalent of 119,000 units in the United States last week according to music data tracker Luminate. It was enough to keep "SOS" on top of the Billboard 200 for the sixth consecutive week since its Dec. 7 release — a feat matched only by icons Adele and Taylor Swift in the last decade.

Janet Jackson's 1993 release "Janet" was the last R&B release by a woman to top the chart for its first six weeks according to Billboard. SZA's run at the top is the longest for an R&B artist since Usher’s “Confessions” spent nine weeks atop the chart in 2004.

Born Solána Imani Rowe in St. Louis, Missouri, SZA's art takes unique inspiration from a childhood spent in New Jersey, where she was raised by her devout Muslim father and a Christian mother.

Citing Ella Fitzgerald and Lauryn Hill among her key musical influences, the artists whose acronym — taken from the Nation of Islam's Supreme Alphabet — stands for Sovereign (modified from Savior) Zig-Zag Allah, self-released her first EP "See.SZA.Run" in 2012.

After signing with RCA Records she released her critically-acclaimed studio debut "Ctrl" in 2017. It premiered at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and earned SZA four Grammy nominations. Time magazine gave it the nod over rapper Kendrick Lamar's equally praised release, "Damn," for best album of the year.

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