SZA, born Solána Imani Rowe on 8 November 1989 in St Louis, Missouri, is an American singer and songwriter widely regarded as one of the defining R&B artists of her generation, a background documented on Wikipedia. She was raised in Maplewood, New Jersey, in a household that blended her mother Audrey’s Christian faith with her father Abdul’s Muslim faith; her mother worked as an AT&T executive and her father as a CNN producer, and SZA wore a hijab in elementary and early middle school until after the 11 September attacks.

She attended Columbia High School in New Jersey before enrolling at Delaware State University to study marine biology, only to drop out in her final semester to pursue music full time, per Wikipedia. In the years before her breakthrough she worked a string of jobs, including bartending and dancing at nightclubs in New Jersey, while writing and recording music independently.

SZA took her stage name from the Five Percent Nation’s Supreme Alphabet, an influence she has credited alongside Wu-Tang Clan members RZA and GZA, according to Wikipedia. She self-released two EPs, See.SZA.Run in October 2012 and S in April 2013, building an underground following before Top Dawg Entertainment signed her on 14 July 2013, making her the label’s first female artist.

Her TDE debut EP, Z, followed in April 2014 and featured a collaboration with label mate Kendrick Lamar on “Babylon”, an early sign of the writing partnership that would recur throughout her career. That run of independent and label-backed releases established her as one of R&B’s most closely watched new voices heading into her debut album.

SZA’s proper breakthrough arrived with Ctrl, released on 9 June 2017 through TDE and RCA Records. The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 with around 60,000 first-week units, went on to become one of the longest-charting R&B albums by a woman in Billboard 200 history, and earned five Grammy nominations at the 2018 ceremony, including Best New Artist, a run of achievements detailed on Wikipedia’s Ctrl page.

Five years later, SOS turned that critical acclaim into outright commercial dominance. Released on 9 December 2022, the album spent more than ten weeks at number one on the Billboard 200, the most of any R&B/hip-hop album by a woman since Mariah Carey’s self-titled debut in 1991, and became the second most-streamed album globally in 2023, according to Wikipedia’s SOS entry. Its lead single “Kill Bill” topped the Billboard Hot 100, and a 2024 deluxe reissue, SOS Deluxe: Lana, later returned the album to number one, extending its remarkable chart run.

SZA has won five Grammy Awards across three ceremonies. Her first came at the 2022 Grammys, where “Kiss Me More” with Doja Cat won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, a win covered by Billboard. At the 2024 ceremony she took home three further trophies, Best Progressive R&B Album for SOS, Best R&B Song for “Snooze” and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Ghost in the Machine” with Phoebe Bridgers, a sweep reported by Billboard. Her fifth win followed at the 2025 Grammys, where “Saturn” won Best R&B Song, a result confirmed on Wikipedia.

On the charts, SOS broke the record held by Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the longest-running US top ten album by a Black artist and became the first album by a woman to spend 100 weeks inside the Billboard 200’s top ten, milestones documented on Wikipedia.

SZA was named Billboard’s 2023 Woman of the Year, an honour presented at the Billboard Women in Music ceremony on 1 March 2023 that recognised how SOS had “catapulted her into superstardom,” according to Billboard. The award placed her alongside previous honourees including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Cardi B.

She has also built a career beyond music, co-starring with Keke Palmer in the 2025 comedy One of Them Days, appearing on Sesame Street’s 55th season, and contributing the song “Save the Day” to Pixar’s Hoppers soundtrack, a run of crossover appearances documented on Wikipedia.

In August 2025, Vans named SZA as its first-ever artistic director, a multi-year creative partnership under which she co-designs collections and campaigns for the brand, announced by parent company VF Corporation in a press release. She subsequently fronted the brand’s spring 2026 “Off the Wall” campaign alongside Hayley Williams and Travis Barker.

Earlier deals include a starring role in Calvin Klein’s spring 2020 “Deal With It” underwear campaign alongside Kendall Jenner and Justin Bieber, covered by W Magazine, and two limited-edition Crocs collaborations in 2022, the first tied to Mental Health Awareness Month with proceeds supporting organisations including NAMI, reported by Hypebeast.

In April 2025, SZA launched her own beauty brand, Not Beauty, starting with a trio of $23 lip glosses sold first through pop-up stores on the Grand National Tour before moving online, a rollout covered by The Fader. The line, described as cruelty-free, gluten-free and vegan, marked her first owned consumer products company rather than a licensed collaboration.

She has also run smaller merchandise ventures tied to her music, including a Ctrl-branded fishing-themed apparel line launched in 2019, a project noted on Wikipedia as an early example of her building product lines around her own catalogue rather than relying solely on standard tour merchandise.

SZA has not published a formal real estate portfolio, but reporting on her living arrangements points to a long-standing base in Los Angeles. She has been reported as living in a three-storey Spanish revival home in Hollywood featuring dark wooden beams and marble countertops, having previously owned a condominium in the city’s Wilshire Corridor as of 2015, according to Home and Texture. The same reporting notes she has also spent extended periods in Hawaii, though no single residence there has been publicly documented as hers.

Beyond property, her major disclosed assets are tied chiefly to her music catalogue, songwriting royalties and touring income rather than any publicly reported car collection or other tangible holdings.