SZA’s sophomore album, SOS, debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard chart this week. It marks the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter’s first No. 1 album on this chart.
According to Billboard, SOS sold 318,000 equivalent units in its first week of sales. With 404.58 million on-demand streams, SOS tallies the biggest streaming week ever for an R&B album. It also marks the second-largest streaming week in history for an album by a female artist, Billboard further reports.
SOS was released Dec. 9 on Top Dawg Entertainment and RCA Records. A week after its release, SOS was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The album includes SZA’s platinum-selling singles “Good Days,” “I Hate U” and “Shirt.” It also features appearances by Don Toliver (“Used”), Ol’Dirty Bastard (“Forgiveless”), Phoebe Bridgers (“Ghost In the Machine”) and Travis Scott (“Open Arms”). Scott also contributed ad-libs to “Low.”
SOS includes production by Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, Babyface, Leon Thomas, Jay Versace, Rob Bisel, thankgod4cody, Carter Lang and more.
Thomas, who contributed to “Snooze” with Babyface, exclusively told Rated R&B about his experience working on the song.
“I had met [SZA] before, but this was a great reintroduction to her new world of music. I’m glad that I was able to collaborate with such strong creators… The whole thing came together really fast. She wrote [“Snooze”] in an hour. We weren’t sure if she was going to use it, so it’s a super blessing,” said Thomas.
SOS is the follow-up to SZA’s 2017 debut album, Ctrl. In June, SZA released Ctrl (Deluxe) to celebrate the album’s fifth anniversary. The expanded edition includes all the original songs plus seven unreleased tracks SZA recorded when she worked on the album.
Ctrl debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B Albums chart. Ctrl has remained on the Billboard chart since its release, tallying 288 consecutive weeks.
The album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) four months after its release. In July 2020, the Grammy-nominated album was upgraded to 2x multi-platinum for selling over two million equivalent units.
In other news, SZA recently announced her headlining SOS North American Tour with special guest Omar Apollo.
The tour kicks off Feb. 21, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio, at Schottenstein Center. From there, SZA will perform at arenas in major cities, including Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Atlanta and Seattle. The tour concludes March 22, 2023, at Kia Forum, in Los Angeles, California.
