Who is Glastonbury headliner SZA - and how do you pronounce her name?

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Things really started to take off in 2017 when she released Ctrl, which was critically adored and became the second longest-charting R&B album by a female artist on the Billboard 200: it also scored four Grammy nominations with its air of insouciant lo-fi indie, always foregrounding SZA’s rawly honest vocal over charmingly scrappy tracks that mix everything from the campfire strum of acoustic guitar to fuck-boi trap beats. You could make the argument that someone like the singer-songwriter Mitski could be hitting the Pyramid Stage on Sunday night – she might not be “chart-big” but comes with a combination of rabid teen fans and “real music” types who find her acceptable because she has a guitar and will take any opportunity to tell you about the time they saw her play The Victoria in Dalston to 25 people. Glastonbury – and to a lesser extent festivals like Primavera – are in a position to say, “Hey, we know you like loads of different stuff: this thing you haven’t heard before is going to be great.” Maybe that makes more sense at a festival that leans alternative, but how cool is it that one of the big three slots at Glastonbury has gone to someone who has a huge fanbase but hasn’t necessarily got that universal reach yet? So grab yourself a warm beer, pull up your waterproof trews and head out into the sea of people who already know that SZA is going to deliver a festival set that is as soft and heavy as life itself, that will be full of moments of transient beauty and righteous fury and will leave you feeling like you just experienced something special, even if it’s not your first choice.