On Saturday (June 29), SZA headlined 2024’s BST Hyde Park. During her set, the TDE songstress shared some exciting news with fans alongside a preview of her next single.
In footage shared online, she asked the crowd, “New album, you ready?” before playing a snippet of an unreleased song titled “Storytime.” Shortly after, the artist shared the official teaser via her social media accounts. “I know you told stories about me/ Most of them awful, all of them true/ Here’s some for you, yeah,” SZA sang.
In the accompanying clip, viewers got a closer look at the artist’s alien-like grasshopper look created by FX makeup artists Malina Stearns and Sasha Glasser. The latter MUA notably worked on Doja Cat’s blue demon costume for “Paint The Town Red.”
Although SZA didn’t confirm the album’s title, fans have been eagerly awaiting LANA, which was teased as a deluxe edition of her chart-topping SOS. She first announced the project during her surprise performance in New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard, revealing that it would span seven to 10 songs.
“It was gonna be [SOS] outtakes and some new songs, but it’s become more than I expected,” the “Love Galore” singer detailed in a cover story with Variety. “It was gonna be really soft because I had made all my screaming points, and I just wanted to glide, and not think [too much], and get out of my own head — I was so happy to say some s**t that didn’t mean a f**king thing.”
In March 2024, SZA shared that she would be starting the LP from scratch after several unauthorized songs surfaced online. “So, we’ll make this really simple. Y’all leaked three songs from the deluxe. At this point, y’all can keep the throwaways and leaks,” she wrote on Twitter. “Do not ask me about it again. Thank you.”