One of the many praises that SZA often receives as a songwriter is that she pens R&B anthems in a style as complex as her rapper labelmates on Top Dawg Entertainment (especially on her new album, SOS). And although she’s not strictly seen as a rapper, she could release a whole album of straight-up rap if she wanted to because she has enough songs to do so, according to Top Dawg president Punch.
The longsuffering label head — he’s taken plenty of abuse from SZA fans over the years for the steps he’s taken to ensure her success, although he turns out to be right more often than not — sat down with Rap Radar Podcast and gave his takes on SZA’s growth since she signed to the label almost a decade ago.
“I think she’s adjusting [to fame] a lot better now,” he said. “I think it’s finally starting to set in as to what’s going on and who she is. Like, for the longest, I don’t feel she connected who SZA is to Solána. But I think now, she’s starting to see it, to understand.”
As far as her rap-infused songwriting style, he revealed that the “genre-bending” singer could easily hold her own with the rest of TDE’s roster. “She’s always bended the genre, so it wasn’t nothing new, it was just going, pushing it further,” he noted. “Like, she doing full rap records now … That’s all her, yeah, 100 percent. She got like an EP’s worth of full rap records, like all the way out, no singing.”
Hey Punch, here me out: A tag-team joint project with Doechii. Gangbusters, fam. Thank me later.
You can watch the full episode of Punch’s interview with Rap Radar‘s Elliott Wilson and Brian Miller above.