“Kill Bill” by SZA, Monday, June 26, 2023

Solána Imani Rowe took the stage name SZA when beginning her career. Since the artist's full-length debut Ctrl in 2017, the singer/rapper has been an industry darling appearing in many collaborations from Maroon 5 to Doja Cat. The artist takes her stage name from the rapper RZA and her deep Muslim faith, which she was raised in from childhood. SZA stands for savior, zig-zag, and Allah. Today, SZA talks about her Muslim faith, for which she sometimes has an individualistic interpretation. 

I DID IT ALL ON NO DRUGS. SZA's latest album, SOS, was released in December of last year. However, the first single from the record, "Good Days," was released on Christmas Day, 2022, and the second single, "I Hate U," was released a year later in December of 2021. In January of this year, SZA released "Kill Bill" as the fifth single from the record. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks, becoming SZA's biggest hit to date. The song references directly the film by writer-director Quentin Tarantino starring Uma Thurman as The Bride, Beatrix Kiddo, who seeks revenge on her former boss who left her pregnant and in a coma for four years. The song draws parallels between the characters in the two-part film series and SZA's rage towards her own ex. Referenced in the lyrics, SZA's therapist advised her to focus on "other men," but the rage toward him is too great. SZA told Glamour, "I've never raged the way that I should have. This is my villain era, and I'm very comfortable with that. It is in the way I say no [...] It's in the fucked up things that I don't apologize for."

RATHER BE IN JAIL THAN ALONE. Sometimes, there's nothing quite as satisfying as the violence of a film by Quentin Tarantino. It's hard to believe that it's been twenty years since the release of the first Kill Bill installment, full of Beatrix Kiddo's calculated revenge on the present and former gang members who surround their leader, Bill.  While SZA's lyrics don't make listeners think that she has been physically harmed in the way that the Bride in Kill Bill has, the revenge is nonetheless equated with disrupting her ex and the other woman. Whether or not this is an actual killing plotted or just an extended metaphor for another form of psychological revenge via pop song, "Kill Bill" joins the ranks of feminist vigilante bangers like The Chick's 2000 hit "Goodbye Earl" and 2020's "No Body, No Crime" by Taylor Swift and Haim. Just like watching bloody, Tarantino revenge, writing a song about an ex's demise usually quenches the blood thirst. You begin to realize that, no, you actually don't want to go to jail. That what he did wasn't worth your time. And just seeing him dead, pathetic like a squashed bug, is all the time he is worth.  








 

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