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In a brand new interview with GQ, SZA explains the process behind her song “Supermodel,” the first track on her critically acclaimed album CTRL. After finally finishing the song and working on completing the album’s tracklist with TDE, she explains that her label mate Kendrick Lamar told her some advice that she wasn’t super happy with. She explained, “Kendrick was like, ‘This is an album cut. This should be at the end.’”
SZA later states that after sending the song to someone she describes as “the meanest person [she] knew” and getting a rave review, she had more confidence in the track and ended up ignoring Lamar’s advice. Exactly the contrary of Kendrick’s advice, she put it first on the tracklist. She’s happy over her choice and says, “That was the one time I’ve ever been right. I knew that song was different. I just didn’t know why, but I knew it was different than anything I’ve done.”
Those aren’t the only discrepancies that went on behind the scenes, either. TDE’s first lady also explains that legendary producer Pharrell made two different drum patterns for the song, but she ended up not using either and going with live drums from Social Experiment drummer Stix instead. SZA explained the decision saying, “It just did not work out…Pharrell’s [drums] are synthetic and Stix was playing live. So it was just a matter of textures and timing. That natural human swing—Stix was just in that natural human in-person swing.”
See what else Solana has to say about the process behind fan favorite song “Supermodel” in the video below.
SZA Says She Ignored Advice From Both Kendrick Lamar And Pharrell About Her Track, “Supermodel” was originally published on globalgrind.com
