*There is more about SZA than you probably know. She released her sophomore album SOS on December 9. She expected it to go far, but it exceeded her expectations. She couldn’t believe it was happening as she watched her album steadily rise on the charts to No. 1. Globally. She recently celebrated her third consecutive week at No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 charts.
The now 33-year-old Grammy winner never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would one day rise to become a No. 1 artist globally. Born Solána Rowe, SZA now says that the challenges she experienced while growing up somewhat prepared her for this moment. For one, she was bullied in school for varying reasons.
“I was bullied because I wasn’t quiet and I was awkward at the same time,” she tells PEOPLE. “I wasn’t this tiny sad victim, but I was more so attacked just because it was giving ‘What is wrong with you?’ energy.”
Nobody seemed to like her no matter what she did.
“I always thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I’ll never have the approval of anyone in life, this must be my defining factor, this must be the bottom line,” she recalls.
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But she is now grateful she had it rough back then; the tough experiences made her who she is now.
“I realized that all the things that made me feel so lame were actually what made me into who I am,” she adds. “It’s like, I didn’t go to prom because I didn’t have any friends and I had no one to go to prom with … [and now] it’s so weird that my life turned into [having] a bodyguard while traveling to parties.”
She says that all these things only made her want to do more to prove to herself that she was worth more than what people made her believe about herself.
“[So] I just had to do more, I had to be more because I was like, ‘This s—ty experience can’t be the end of it because if it is, I am cooked.’ ”
When in middle school SZA had to deal with Islamophobia, and had to stop wearing her hijab in school after the terrorist attack on 9/11. SZA was raised by a Muslim father and a Christian mother in Maplewood, New Jersey. The discrimination she faced due to her faith has only made her be outspoken about it; it’s something she’s not ashamed of.
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The “Snooze” songstress now has a couple of ways to deal with the overwhelming feelings.
“Sometimes it’s crying, sometimes it’s eating my favorite food, or going to the beach, or going for a walk or doing Shambhavi [Mahamudra],” she says. “Sometimes it’s just praying straight up by myself and just telling God, ‘Wow, I feel so trash right now and I desperately need your help.’ ”
She has some advice for young girls going through a similar experience:
“Everyone who experiences bullying, that just sucks, but it’s going to lead you to something, it has to,” the “Low” singer says. “If you could hold on and just wait until high school is over because 10 years from now, I promise you, none of those people will matter.”
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