Deciphering SZA’s Mumbled Lyrics Is TikTok’s New Favourite Meme

A couple of months ago, Doja Cat and SZA dropped their wildly hooky bop ‘Kiss Me More’, the lead single off Doja’s just-released Planet Her album.

The single went gangbusters, reaching #3 on the Billboard and UK singles charts, and #2 on the ARIA rankings — flick on the radio and you’re bound to hear it spun in about 0.2 seconds. That’s not a bad thing: it’s a great single, breezy, disco-tinged, tongue-in-cheeks, and the vocals stylings of Doja and SZA slide along well together.

SZA’s verse attracted particular attention — not just because it was a great feature, but also because no one quite knew what the hell she was actually singing. As with a lot of SZA’s work, the vocal was mumbled, the lines ran into each other — it’s a characteristic of plenty of current popstars, and sometimes it can get a little out of hand, like in ‘Kiss Me More’:

Vids about the verse have consistently gone viral since the song’s release back in April, spawning the hashtags #Sizalish or #Szanese. One performance of her 2017 track ‘Love Galore’ has been a particular focus, and you can see why:

It’s now evolved into people trying to ~decipher~ the lyrics — while accounts have sprung up that are entirely devoted to presenting the actual lyrics over the songs.

But SZA isn’t the first artist to get this treatment — artists like Sia and Ariana Grande have long been called out for their infamous mumble singing. Ariana Grande’s familiar sleepy mumble was even roasted herself after the release of ‘Positions’ last year: