There’s something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It’s like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.
SZAI wasn’t popular in high school; I had no friends.
More SZA Quotes
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People grapple with labeling me as hip-hop, R&B, or pop, and it’s interesting to me. I’m just making music.
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I don’t enjoy being interviewed. I feel like it exhausts a lot of my energy. I feel empty after.
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Searchin for peace be like fishing for water.
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I was born in St. Louis, but I’m from Maplewood, New Jersey. Maplewood is completely different than the rest of New Jersey. It’s very small. It’s quietly affluent but more low-key. Lauryn Hill is from my town, though.
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I feel like when you say ‘activist,’ you have to have so much clarity, and I don’t always necessarily have so much clarity on how I want to help others, I just have this weird, deep urge to help other people. I’m trying to let God guide my body and use it as whatever kind of vehicle or vessel it needs to be.
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Desperately yearning to accept its all as it should be.
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Wearing a hijab never made me feel any more conservative – it made me feel safe. Then, after 9/11, I became the butt of a joke on the playground, so I stopped wearing it. Kids can be really cruel when you’re the only black girl in your Girl Scout troop.
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My music is touching people in whatever spaces they need to be touched in.
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Your energy told me what your mouth couldn’t.
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Listening to Alabama Shakes made me less self-conscious about my voice.
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Rebirth. Entropy. Beauty. Chaos. Divine feminine.
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I wasn’t popular in high school; I had no friends.
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I learned everything the hard way – like, literally, everything. I know that God does that to people that he has lessons for. I just wish that I had learned less extreme lessons.
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Pain plus love and time = power.
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I don’t have any control over what actually happens except that I have full control over my will for myself, my intention, and why I’m there. That’s all that matters.
SZA






