SZA was worried that fans would only go to Grand National Tour shows for Kendrick Lamar
The R+B superstar is sharing top billing with the rapper on their current global jaunt but has explained that she was crippled by anxiety before the performances began.
In conversation with fellow artist Chappell Roan for Interview magazine, SZA said: "Every time I had to go on stage, every time I had to get on a carpet, I'd have full-on panic attacks.
"I used to not show up to something because it was like, 'I'm never going to win. No one cares that I'm here. Why would I go?'"
The Saturn hitmaker continued: "Same thing with the Kendrick tour. Everybody's going to see Kendrick. I don't even know if I have anything to show these people that's exciting and new."
However, SZA says she has been able to quash her anxious thoughts by connecting with her spirituality and educating herself on the "laws of magic".
She said: "Now it's just like, 'F*** it. I don't have anything else to do, and I want to see where this door is going to lead.' I want to walk through the door. I want to see what happens in the uncertainty."
SZA was joined on stage by her pal Lizzo at a concert in Inglewood last month and she explained how the pair have been good friends for more than a decade.
The 35-year-old singer recalled: "We've been friends since, like, 2013, but it was very organic and very random.
"One day we were on the same tour, and I was like, 'We're about to drive out to Lake Michigan, do you want to come?' And she was like, 'Yeah, let's go.' And then we just got drunk and hung out, and we kept doing that, and then our lives and careers progressed, and we kept talking and hanging out."
Meanwhile, SZA confessed last year that she was too "scared to go over" and introduce herself to Beyonce at the Grammy Awards.
The Kill Bill singer – who has long been a fan of the music megastar – said: "I can't speak unless she wants to speak, in my brain, because I don't want to bother her. She looked so peaceful and beautiful.
"I just admire her. She's a masterclass on poise, grace, artistry, beauty and kindness."
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Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
How ‘Gen Z's Mozart' almost dismissed Herbie Hancock's email as a joke
Understandably, Jacob Collier suspected one of his mates was pulling a prank. In 2013, when Collier was just 19, he uploaded a video to YouTube: a cover of Stevie Wonder's Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, which he recorded at his family's home in London. Within a couple of days, it notched up more than 100,000 views, so he made it available for purchase online. Soon after, Collier – who will embark on his first arena tour of Australia in December – received an email informing him that Herbie Hancock had bought five of his recordings. Then came a message purporting to be from the jazz legend himself: 'Wow, Jacob! Your stuff is amazing. Please keep expanding in your life, as well as your music. I believe that craft may be about melody, rhythm, harmony, the notes etc but music is about life. -Herbie Hancock.' 'My first instinct was, 'Which one of my homies is trying to pull the wool over my eyes?'' says Collier, gazing at the Melbourne skyline from a top-floor suite, complete with a grand piano, in the Park Hyatt hotel. 'I just thought, 'This is insane!' But it really was Herbie.' This was followed by another pinch-me moment when his video came to the attention of Quincy Jones, one of the world's most acclaimed music producers. 'Quincy just lost his mind,' recalled Adam Fell, the president of Jones' production company. 'He said, 'I don't care what you're doing right now, I don't care how busy you are – find this kid'.' Jones was so taken with Collier's version of Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing that he would play it, alongside Wonder's original recording, to whomever he was meeting. 'It didn't matter if it was Paul McCartney or Queen Rania,' Fell told the BBC. 'Quincy would show them that video and say, 'I've never seen anything like this! Have you?'' Loading Famously, when Jones tried to sign Collier, the young singer and his mother suggested they and Jones first get to know each other as friends. 'As a child, I created so much music in the solitary cocoon of my family's music room,' explains Collier, who is dressed in a typically flamboyant ensemble of yellow Crocs, red pants and multicoloured parachute jacket. 'I didn't have a team at the time; it was just me and my mum, and I wasn't sure what it would feel like to work with other people. The fact that Quincy and I built our working relationship on a foundation of friendship and human connection was so valuable.' When we meet, Collier, 30, is fresh from performing as a headline act in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. He looks as though he's in his early 20s, yet he has the vocabulary and impeccable manners of a middle-aged English gentleman. Over the past dozen years, his work has racked up hundreds of millions of streams across TikTok, YouTube and Spotify. He's collaborated with everyone from Joni Mitchell and Coldplay to Alicia Keys, David Crosby and the rapper Stormzy. And he has already won seven Grammy Awards, making him the only British artist to claim at least one Grammy for each of his first five studio albums. It's little wonder he's been labelled a 'genius', a 'jazz messiah' and the 'Mozart of Gen Z' by critics. 'Whatever he does blows my mind.' 'He's so in demand,' said Coldplay's Chris Martin, who is now a friend of the Collier family. 'We all recognised, 'Oh, this guy can make us sound better'.' Jones, who died last year, declared that 'whatever he does blows my mind'. Film composer Hans Zimmer raved that much of Collier's work 'is on the edge of the impossible', while Hancock went as far as to rank Collier's harmonic talents above his own. 'I thought I was good with harmonies,' he said, 'but he was all over my stuff – and past that.' But what is it that makes Collier's music so special? As Jones once explained, Western music has used the same 12 notes of the chromatic scale for several hundred years. But Collier likes to operate in the spaces in between, with an array of 'micro-notes' and 'quarter tones' that, incredibly, he can distinguish by ear. He also plays dozens of instruments. His cover of Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, made entirely by himself, is a good example. On that track alone, he plays the guitar, mandolin, double bass, keyboard, piano, djembe drums, box drums, cowbell, egg shakers and a tambourine; he also recorded several different vocal elements – some of which sound peculiar in isolation – before stitching them together to form a beautifully layered whole. (His videos frequently use a split screen format to showcase each aspect.) 'I'd stay up until the early hours of the morning after spending a whole day at school,' Collier says. 'I was doing things harmonically and rhythmically that I'd never heard before. It was such an exciting time; I felt like I was building my own little cathedral out of matchsticks.' When Collier was a toddler, his mother, Suzie – an acclaimed violinist, conductor and professor – noticed how he'd tune in to the hum of the vacuum cleaner. Heeding the advice of her late father, Derek (a violinist himself, and a former leader of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra), she sang to her son from birth and encouraged him to explore the sounds around him. 'A car alarm would go off and she'd say, 'Oh, look at this! That's an E major chord',' he says. 'When you're a child, your imagination is as important as the real world, if not more so, and she was able to show me this world of sound that really lit me up.' When Collier brings his Djesse World Tour to Australia in December ('Djesse' being a play on his initials, JC), he'll be supported by local musician Nai Palm. As in many of his previous performances, he will play choirmaster, inviting every member of the audience to get involved. 'It's a multi-genre show,' he explains. 'It has some structured elements but also some chaotic elements. There'll be some acoustic moments and some very dance, jazz, folk, electronic and rock 'n' roll moments. I love being in an operation that's very defined and rhythmic, but I also love that feeling of not knowing what's going to happen next.' TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO JACOB COLLIER Worst habit? Going to bed at 7am and waking up at 2pm. My sleep schedule is completely upside down. Greatest fear? My own apathy. I worry about numbing out to the world in a time of so much change. The line that stayed with you? Quincy Jones used to say, 'Don't try to be cool – be warm.' Biggest regret? The sacrifices made by the people I love most, to allow me to do what I do. I'm very, very grateful to them. Favourite book? Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The artwork/song you wish was yours? September by Earth, Wind & Fire. Can you imagine having written that song? We blast it after every show so that everyone leaves on a high. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? To an Earth, Wind & Fire concert in the 1970s. During his first tour of Australia in 2018, Collier used a video looping system and specially made harmoniser to perform a one-man concert. 'I was using all sorts of gizmos back then, but I've since traded a lot of those gadgets for people, which has been of great benefit to me,' he says. 'When I was a solo performer, I fell in love with the idea that, in the absence of bandmates, the audience becomes the band – and that's still an important part of the show because I love that communal feeling.' He doesn't hesitate when asked to name his biggest musical hero. 'My mum is number one, obviously,' he says. 'Of all the things I've done as a musician – starting with those multiscreen videos, then making albums and travelling all over the world – she's always lent her expertise and wisdom in a really lovely way. She even conducted the orchestra on my last album, Djesse Vol. 4. It was an amazing, full-circle moment to take the DNA of what I learned as a child and fold it into what I'm doing now.'
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
How ‘Gen Z's Mozart' almost dismissed Herbie Hancock's email as a joke
Understandably, Jacob Collier suspected one of his mates was pulling a prank. In 2013, when Collier was just 19, he uploaded a video to YouTube: a cover of Stevie Wonder's Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, which he recorded at his family's home in London. Within a couple of days, it notched up more than 100,000 views, so he made it available for purchase online. Soon after, Collier – who will embark on his first arena tour of Australia in December – received an email informing him that Herbie Hancock had bought five of his recordings. Then came a message purporting to be from the jazz legend himself: 'Wow, Jacob! Your stuff is amazing. Please keep expanding in your life, as well as your music. I believe that craft may be about melody, rhythm, harmony, the notes etc but music is about life. -Herbie Hancock.' 'My first instinct was, 'Which one of my homies is trying to pull the wool over my eyes?'' says Collier, gazing at the Melbourne skyline from a top-floor suite, complete with a grand piano, in the Park Hyatt hotel. 'I just thought, 'This is insane!' But it really was Herbie.' This was followed by another pinch-me moment when his video came to the attention of Quincy Jones, one of the world's most acclaimed music producers. 'Quincy just lost his mind,' recalled Adam Fell, the president of Jones' production company. 'He said, 'I don't care what you're doing right now, I don't care how busy you are – find this kid'.' Jones was so taken with Collier's version of Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing that he would play it, alongside Wonder's original recording, to whomever he was meeting. 'It didn't matter if it was Paul McCartney or Queen Rania,' Fell told the BBC. 'Quincy would show them that video and say, 'I've never seen anything like this! Have you?'' Loading Famously, when Jones tried to sign Collier, the young singer and his mother suggested they and Jones first get to know each other as friends. 'As a child, I created so much music in the solitary cocoon of my family's music room,' explains Collier, who is dressed in a typically flamboyant ensemble of yellow Crocs, red pants and multicoloured parachute jacket. 'I didn't have a team at the time; it was just me and my mum, and I wasn't sure what it would feel like to work with other people. The fact that Quincy and I built our working relationship on a foundation of friendship and human connection was so valuable.' When we meet, Collier, 30, is fresh from performing as a headline act in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. He looks as though he's in his early 20s, yet he has the vocabulary and impeccable manners of a middle-aged English gentleman. Over the past dozen years, his work has racked up hundreds of millions of streams across TikTok, YouTube and Spotify. He's collaborated with everyone from Joni Mitchell and Coldplay to Alicia Keys, David Crosby and the rapper Stormzy. And he has already won seven Grammy Awards, making him the only British artist to claim at least one Grammy for each of his first five studio albums. It's little wonder he's been labelled a 'genius', a 'jazz messiah' and the 'Mozart of Gen Z' by critics. 'Whatever he does blows my mind.' 'He's so in demand,' said Coldplay's Chris Martin, who is now a friend of the Collier family. 'We all recognised, 'Oh, this guy can make us sound better'.' Jones, who died last year, declared that 'whatever he does blows my mind'. Film composer Hans Zimmer raved that much of Collier's work 'is on the edge of the impossible', while Hancock went as far as to rank Collier's harmonic talents above his own. 'I thought I was good with harmonies,' he said, 'but he was all over my stuff – and past that.' But what is it that makes Collier's music so special? As Jones once explained, Western music has used the same 12 notes of the chromatic scale for several hundred years. But Collier likes to operate in the spaces in between, with an array of 'micro-notes' and 'quarter tones' that, incredibly, he can distinguish by ear. He also plays dozens of instruments. His cover of Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, made entirely by himself, is a good example. On that track alone, he plays the guitar, mandolin, double bass, keyboard, piano, djembe drums, box drums, cowbell, egg shakers and a tambourine; he also recorded several different vocal elements – some of which sound peculiar in isolation – before stitching them together to form a beautifully layered whole. (His videos frequently use a split screen format to showcase each aspect.) 'I'd stay up until the early hours of the morning after spending a whole day at school,' Collier says. 'I was doing things harmonically and rhythmically that I'd never heard before. It was such an exciting time; I felt like I was building my own little cathedral out of matchsticks.' When Collier was a toddler, his mother, Suzie – an acclaimed violinist, conductor and professor – noticed how he'd tune in to the hum of the vacuum cleaner. Heeding the advice of her late father, Derek (a violinist himself, and a former leader of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra), she sang to her son from birth and encouraged him to explore the sounds around him. 'A car alarm would go off and she'd say, 'Oh, look at this! That's an E major chord',' he says. 'When you're a child, your imagination is as important as the real world, if not more so, and she was able to show me this world of sound that really lit me up.' When Collier brings his Djesse World Tour to Australia in December ('Djesse' being a play on his initials, JC), he'll be supported by local musician Nai Palm. As in many of his previous performances, he will play choirmaster, inviting every member of the audience to get involved. 'It's a multi-genre show,' he explains. 'It has some structured elements but also some chaotic elements. There'll be some acoustic moments and some very dance, jazz, folk, electronic and rock 'n' roll moments. I love being in an operation that's very defined and rhythmic, but I also love that feeling of not knowing what's going to happen next.' TAKE 7: THE ANSWERS ACCORDING TO JACOB COLLIER Worst habit? Going to bed at 7am and waking up at 2pm. My sleep schedule is completely upside down. Greatest fear? My own apathy. I worry about numbing out to the world in a time of so much change. The line that stayed with you? Quincy Jones used to say, 'Don't try to be cool – be warm.' Biggest regret? The sacrifices made by the people I love most, to allow me to do what I do. I'm very, very grateful to them. Favourite book? Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The artwork/song you wish was yours? September by Earth, Wind & Fire. Can you imagine having written that song? We blast it after every show so that everyone leaves on a high. If you could time travel, where would you choose to go? To an Earth, Wind & Fire concert in the 1970s. During his first tour of Australia in 2018, Collier used a video looping system and specially made harmoniser to perform a one-man concert. 'I was using all sorts of gizmos back then, but I've since traded a lot of those gadgets for people, which has been of great benefit to me,' he says. 'When I was a solo performer, I fell in love with the idea that, in the absence of bandmates, the audience becomes the band – and that's still an important part of the show because I love that communal feeling.' He doesn't hesitate when asked to name his biggest musical hero. 'My mum is number one, obviously,' he says. 'Of all the things I've done as a musician – starting with those multiscreen videos, then making albums and travelling all over the world – she's always lent her expertise and wisdom in a really lovely way. She even conducted the orchestra on my last album, Djesse Vol. 4. It was an amazing, full-circle moment to take the DNA of what I learned as a child and fold it into what I'm doing now.'
News.com.au
2 days ago
- News.com.au
Keith Urban hangs up on Aussie radio hosts when asked intimate question about wife Nicole Kidman
Keith Urban left two Adelaide radio hosts in shock when he hung up on them live on air after they asked an intimate question about his wife, Nicole Kidman. The country music star called into Mix 102.3's Hayley & Max in the Morning on Tuesday, ahead of the Aussie leg of his High and Alive world tour next month, when the line suddenly went dead. Urban was in good spirits at the start of the interview as he expressed his excitement to play at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on August 28 because it's 'just a good vibe in the audience', he said. But the interview went downhill when hosts Hayley Pearson and Max Burford asked him to take part in the show's 'Wall of Truth' segment. Although Urban was a willing participant, it seems he didn't expect the questions to be so personal. 'What does Keith Urban think when he sees his beautiful wife with beautiful younger men like Zac Efron having these beautiful love scenes on TV and radio?' Burford asked before the line grew silent. 'What just happened here?' he asked as a producer said, 'He's disconnected from Zoom.' 'I think his team hung up on us because they didn't want us to ask that question,' the producer added. 'He's gone, see you Keith.' Pearson was rattled that they've 'upset' the Grammy winner and had a feeling 'that would happen'. 'Does Keith Urban hate us? Do we have beef with Keith Urban now?' Burford wondered before telling her, 'If you knew this was going to happen, Hayley, why didn't you stop me asking the question?' It's no secret that Urban doesn't like talking about his famous wife. Last September, the singer was invited on the Jam Nation with Jonesy & Amanda podcast to chat about his new album High and upcoming world tour, when the chat focused on Kidman being at the Venice Film Festival. Host Amanda Keller then began asking questions about the origins of Urban's relationship with the Aussie actress. 'Speaking of your amazing love story with Nicole, you met at G'day Australia. Is that what it was called?' she asked Urban, to which he bluntly corrected her: 'G'day LA.' Keller suggested that if the pair hadn't met that fateful night, they perhaps might never have met at all. 'If you hadn't both been there that day, would your paths somewhere have inevitably crossed? Or maybe ... this incredible love story wouldn't have happened,' she wondered. 'No, I think it would,' Urban insisted. 'Yeah? Are you a believer in fate or do you think it's two Australians, it would have happened?' she persisted, with Urban replying, 'No idea.' The interview became more awkward and Urban appeared to run out of patience. Clearly done with questions about his wife, Urban shut down the topic with three simple words: 'Anyway, moving on.'
