September 21st 2023.
Sza recently made an impactful visit to her home state of New Jersey when she candidly spoke with Princeton students about her experiences as a Black woman in music. On Tuesday, September 19, the Grammy award-winning singer held her “SOS: Race, Art, and Activism” presentation inside Princeton’s Richardson Auditorium.
Sza was supported by a number of scholars and activists, and discussed how she was being boxed into categories set by other notable Black female artists. “Everybody keeps telling me that I need to make music that sounds like Jennifer Hudson, or I need to make urban music, or I need to look this way,” Sza said. She went on to explain that she was inspired by a variety of artists, including punk rock band Blink-182.
Sza also spoke about how race is particularly prevalent during award season. Despite the commercial success of her album “SOS,” Sza was not featured in the VMA category for Artist of the Year. “I was nominated for [eight VMA] awards and only won an R&B award, selling more records than my counterparts,” Sza said. This led to her pulling out of the performance lineup and her manager calling out the award show for the “disrespectful” move.
Sza addressed the public response from those who said she had won many other awards while explaining why she should receive the same opportunities as her white counterparts. “There’s this pattern of feeling like you have to engage with white acceptance, which includes working with people [who] don’t respect you or artists who don’t respect you,” she said.
To advocate for people of color in the music industry, Sza emphasized the power of the word “no.” “It becomes an act of activism just by saying ‘no.’ I felt valuable on my own,” she said. “Everybody needs that reminder if you are a creative of color.”
Sza's keynote presentation and roundtable discussion was held with Aisha Beliso-De Jesús of Princeton University, Elizabeth Hinton of Yale University, Megan Ming Francis from the University of Washington, and Scholar-in-Residence Derecka Purnell from Columbia University.
The impactful event ended with Sza breaking the Billboard record for female No. 1 record on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Chart with her song “Kill Bill”. This just goes to show that Sza is an inspiring role model for the power of self-advocacy and the importance of standing up for yourself in the music industry.
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