SZA Holds Her Own in Handstand Contest With Simone Biles, Talks About Her Past as a Gymnast

As fate would have it, SZA’s stint as a competing athlete led her to the musical influences that have made her the star she is today despite her conservative upbringing, thanks to a mixtape from a friend and an iPod she found at a gymnastics camp.

“I was raised orthodox Muslim. Very sheltered, very conservative. I used to wear overalls and baggy clothes because modesty is a big thing [in Islam]. All my friends were Muslim with the exception of my neighbors,” SZA told Complex. “I didn’t watch television or listen to the radio. When I was cheerleading and doing gymnastics, my dad made me put on leggings and long sleeves. I was a girl so my dad was like, ‘You do nothing.’”

She added that her “only option” growing up was to listen to the music her father did, which included Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong. 

“One of my classmates had a bar mitzvah, so my dad let me go. She gave us this little goodie bag that had a mixtape that had Red Hot Chili Peppers, LFO, Macy Gray all this emo sad rich white kid shit on it. I loved that CD, I played it until it was finished,” she said in the 2013 conversation with Ahmed.

SZA continued, “Other than that, the slight glimpses of outside music came from this iPod I found in gymnastic camp. The dial didn’t work, but it would play all the way through. It had Common, Björk, a lot of Wu, Nas, Mos Def, Hov on it. That was my only thing and I was like this shit is tough. That stuck hard.”