The rollout for SZA‘s upcoming album years in the making has finally commenced.
The album’s more-than-likely lead single “Shirt,” a long-awaited track with a snippet that has gone viral on TikTok and has racked up over half a million Shazam searches, finally dropped at midnight on Friday (Oct. 28). Accompanying this release, the song’s music video featuring Lakeith Stanfield was simultaneously added to YouTube, as it included an additional snippet of her next single “Blind” at the end.
This release comes just one week after Spotify slipped up last Friday (Oct. 21), momentarily releasing “Shirt” then quickly removing it from the platform. SZA clarified that this mishap was not the fault of her or her label TDE.
At first, fans believed that “Shirt” would include Doja Cat as a guest, considering SZA had pretty much said it herself. While performing at Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain on July 10, SZA queued up the highly-anticipated unreleased song. Before performing the track, she announced that the song will include a feature when it is officially released, and alluded that the artist would be her “Kiss Me More” co-star.
But, in a recent cover story for Complex from early October, TDE president Punch stated that due to timing, the initial release of “Shirt” only includes SZA, and that the Doja version would need to be released later as a remix.
Regardless, this start to a new era for SZA is thrilling, as “Shirt” is her first original release in 2022 aside from the CTRL five-year anniversary deluxe. With the album likely to follow soon, it appears that one of R&B’s royalty in this era is finally ready reclaim her throne.
Thanks to an infectious “bloodstain on my shirt” hook, this new single will surely be seen high on the charts when its debut is announced next week.
Check out “Shirt” by SZA below!
