SZA never thought her sophomore album SOS would get this kind of response.
During an interview with the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast on Sunday, the "Good Days" singer opened up about how she felt watching her newly-released record top the musical charts — and make her Spotify's No. 1 artist globally.
"I never thought in a million years that people would like it," SZA (whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe) told the outlet. "My dad's visiting right now, with my mom. Everybody came down to make sure I didn't lose my mind if the album went bad once it came out. And now we're just hanging out, 'cause it didn't go badly!"
Later in the interview, the "I Hate U" singer, 33, revealed that she felt doubt ahead of its release — but was determined to get it over with.
"It happened probably just a few times, like maybe up until the last week, when I texted [my label] and was like, 'We don't have to put this out. We could just pull out and move it to January. We can just let this go.' "
"And then part of me was just like, I just wanna get it over with. I wanna meet my own fate. If n----- hate it, then great. I can never do music again. And I told my engineer, we'll move to India, and we'll live on an ashram, and we'll take a vow of silence, and that's it… And it is also really scary that it didn't go that way because I'm like, now what do I do? And what does this actually mean and when do the tides turn? When does everyone decide that they hate me again or that this sucks?"
She concluded, "And that's unhealthy. That's something I need to talk to my therapist about."
SZA opened up to PEOPLE about the LP shortly before its release, in a conversation surrounding her latest Crocs collection.
"The sound is a little bit of literally everything," the "Kill Bill" singer told PEOPLE of her new album during the discussion. "It's a little angry as an overview, but some of it is really beautiful and soft and heartfelt. It's about heartbreak, it's about being lost, it's about being pissed."
SZA added that she doesn't want to be "boxed into anything" when it comes to describing the sounds included on her new project, which she said would include a "wordy" track list with "definitely a lot of yelling.
"It's my first album in five years, so I'm ready to be a different person and step into this new part of my life," she explained. "Really exemplify who this character is and get to know myself better while everyone else gets to know me live at the same time."
