By Khalia Ward, JRN 101 Student
Media portrayals of Black women often only fall into three archetypes: the mammy, sapphire or jezebel. Stemming from the slave trade, each functions to keep the status quo of racism. As a result, Black women are often not allowed to be seen as the cute, awkward, classically simple girl next door.
SZA’s critically acclaimed Ctrl shifts this paradigm.
The 14-track album, released in the summer of 2017, gifts the listener a dreamy landscape of New Age R&B tropes. It combines 808s and high hats with acoustic instruments associated with typical singer-songwriter pop. Acoustic strings are heavily associated with authenticity and honesty, letting us know we aren’t seeing a larger-than-life character but listening in to a real person’s experiences.
Paired with the use of the piano and electric guitar, the combination results in a unique nostalgic sound that mirrors a coming-of-age film. We can instantly tell this artist is young, naïve, and doesn’t quite know what she’s doing, much like the typical female lead in a teen film.
She tells us sonically what we’re in for in her introductory track, “Supermodel.”
The song starts with the sound of an old recording of her mother speaking about the fear of losing control, which acts as both a thesis statement and introduction to the dreamy nostalgic world.
The singer starts by saying she’s writing a letter to her ex-boyfriend. She’s “really leaving” and not keeping his shirt.
Despite her attempt to exude indifference, she then goes on to rant about how his new girlfriend is beautiful, which makes her insecure. To see him find a girl who looks so far from herself, then give her the attention she once craved, makes her question her own beauty. It spirals into a full-on plea for him to take her back saying she can be his supermodel, if he can see it in her.
On the next track, “Love Galore,” we rewind to when she was still dating him. As listeners, we get the impression he is very inconsistent. Despite both being involved with different people, he still comes around to play with her heart. The consistent phrase uttered is “I need. I need. I need. Love.”
She is not treated well by this person, but she allows it because she is desperate for love, like any naïve ingénue.
She goes on to say, “Why you bother me when you know you don’t want me?” Through these two tracks alone, we know we’re in for a messy relationship that people commonly experience when they are young, insecure, and coming of age.
In the next two tracks, “Drew Barrymore” and “Prom,” cover her insecurities about not feeling “woman” enough or feeling mature enough for her age. She’s frustrated that she not only cannot keep her lover but is making dumb decisions. She’s hard on herself, blaming her lack of maturity as the reason why she cannot find love.
The rest of the track list further cements this ’90s every-woman persona through the iconic songs “Normal Girl” and “20 Something.” “Normal Girl is about SZA’s experience with not being able to be seen as the girl next-door. No matter what she does, she will never be the type of girl a boy takes home to meet his mother without controversy. She will never be the type of girl he shows his friends and they congratulate him. The boy only exists to sexualize her and receive entertainment from her being aggressive.
In the ending track, “20 Something,” she reckons with the end of the relationship, saying she hopes she keeps her friends and doesn’t regret her twenties, as she wasted most of it chasing him. She gives him grace saying she hopes he does great in the rest of his “20 somethings.”
Throughout the entirety of Ctrl, she is neither a mature desexualized mammy stereotype nor a jezebel who is solely concerned with pleasuring men despite being sexually active. If anything, sex is mainly used in order to entice her partner who is implied to be with her for that reason, similar to the storyline involving a stereotypical jock in high school and college movies. While she may be angry at herself for her desperation, she is not angry at everyone for no reason.
The boy projects all three of these stereotypes onto her throughout the album. She always was a simple girl, despite society not allowing her to be. Ctrl completely changed how many of us see Black women in media and put SZA on the map after being an artist who didn’t receive her flowers for years.
Velocity 
Leave a comment