Song Premiere: SZA, 'Sobriety' — npr.org

Faith Silva/Courtesy of Life or Death PR Singer-songwriter SZA consistently tagged the music she released on SoundCloud in 2012 and 2013 as one thing: "Alternative." That tag is something of an anti-classification ether, the place artists go to hide out when music journalists not unlike myself go hunting for victims to categorize. On last year's "Teen Spirit," her first single under the auspices of Top Dawg Entertainment, she added a couple more tags: "Glitter Trap" and "Not R&B." (She'll be in good unclassified company next month when she starts touring with singer Jhené Aiko and Odd Future extremity The Internet — one act is more solidly in the R&B camp, but the other describes itself as Alternative, too. You wouldn't quite feel comfortable describing either as one genre or another.) SZA has a penchant for wafting feathery, enunciated whispers across refracted beats that go hard, so "Glitter Trap" is a pretty spot-on description. And by tagging it "Not R&B," SZA was explicitly saying, "Don't put me in that box and shut the lid." She's telling us what not to expect from her. But on her new single, "Sobriety," it sounds like her steadfastness against the rhythm & blues label might be wavering. At the very least, "Sobriety" is not not R&B.

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