SZA’s second album, SOS, is far from a sophomore slump. The 23-track project remains at No. 1 on Billboard 200 chart for a third consecutive week.
According to Billboard, SOS sold 128,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during the week ending Dec. 29, 2022.
“3 weeks at number one fully minding my business n not giving a f**k. Thank God,” SZA wrote in an Instagram caption.
Additionally, the RIAA gold-certified album is the first R&B project to spend at least three weeks atop the chart since Beyoncé’s 2013 self-titled album.
Elsewhere, SOS is No. 1 on Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart for a third consecutive week.
Released Dec. 9, 2022, SOS debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 318,000 equivalent units sold in the first week. The album garnered 404.58 million on-demand streams, marking the biggest streaming week ever for an R&B album.
Last week, SZA went to Instagram to express her gratitude for SOS remaining in the top spot for a second week.
“Lol instagram randomly deleted my post last week .. but APPARENTLY ITS STILL TRUE THIS WEEK 🥹 number 1 two weeks in a row .. God is incredible. I won’t repeat it all ,but thank you everybody for supporting me and speaking power n love into me. It’s 9:43 in Hawaii . I couldn’t ask for anything more . Life is beautiful and what it should be,” she wrote.
SOS includes 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”).
For production, SZA collaborated with 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.
Last week, SZA teased a forthcoming music video for “Kill Bill.”
“It’s what y’all deserve,” SZA noted in an Instagram post that included a snippet of the visual. A release date for the video has not be announced as of yet.
“Kill Bill,” co-produced by Bisel and Lang, appears to be one of the fan-favorite tracks on SOS. The song has more than 156 million streams on Spotify alone.
On Feb. 21, SZA will kick off her SOS North American Tour at Schottenstein Center in Columbus, Ohio. She will play in other major cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Seattle, before concluding on March 23 at Kia Forum, in Los Angeles, California.
Rising singer Omar Apollo will join SZA on the road as an opening act. Tickets are on sale now for the SOS North American Tour.
SOS is the follow-up to SZA’s 2017 debut album, Ctrl. The album debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top R&B Albums chart. Speaking of Ctrl, the album has remained on the Billboard 200 chart since its release (290 weeks).
At the time of publishing, Ctrl is No. 34 on the Billboard 200 and No. 6 on the Top R&B Albums chart.
In June 2022, SZA released Ctrl (Deluxe) to commemorate the album’s fifth anniversary. The expanded edition included all the original songs, plus seven unreleased songs that SZA recorded when she worked on the album.