SZA Teases Cryptic ‘PSA’ Project in New Video

SZA stans have more questions than answers about what’s to come from the R&B artist following the release of a new “official teaser” on YouTube. Several weeks after dropping “Shirt” and on her 33rd birthday, the Ctrl singer surprised fans with a visual that seems to be the first taste of an upcoming project. Perhaps an album?

Backed by a soft piano and a spacey sound, SZA is captured posing in a bikini inside a circle of green flames as she caresses her body and looks into the camera. “I dont want nobody calling me anything but No. 1,” she sings. “Know I got problems, I don’t know how to take losses/Even when, even when they are lost causes.”

As SZA sings about “pissin’ you off just to get off” and people “acting like bottom feeders,” the video splices the green flame visual with images of SZA pouring a fluorescent blue liquid over her nude body.

By the end, she makes her way into the dark ocean. “Not trying to fight about it,” she sings over an angelic harmony before the music abruptly ends and morse code (…—…) appears onscreen. (It means S.O.S.)

Sharing the video on Instagram, SZA cryptically wrote, “Happy birthday to me. Clock starts now.”

Last month, SZA spoke to Complex about her album-making progress, saying it was “all over the place” but that she didn’t feel rushed to release it.

“I have no idea what it sounds like to anybody else,” she said. “I really don’t know. It’s so bizarre. It’s weird that I can’t put my finger on it. It’s a little bit of everything. It’s a little aggressive.”

She added, “Some parts are incredibly soft. Some of them are ballads. I don’t know. It’s all over the place. It’s just where my heart is.”

Aside from releasing “Shirt,” SZA dropped a deluxe edition of her 2017 LP Ctrl, after releasing “I Hate U” in late 2021. This year, she joined Future on DJ Khaled’s song “Beautiful” and sings with Doechii on a remix of the rapper’s track “Persuasive.”