SZA Returns to Tour Despite Vocal Damage: ‘My Priorities Are F–ked Up’
SZA suggested that her vocal chords may have suffered severe damage in a brief flurry of tweets on Tuesday night.
“My voice is permanently injured,” the singer wrote. “I jus[t] wanna be left alone, my priorities are fucked up,” she added. “They been fucked up. I need space goodbye.” SZA subsequently deleted the tweets, which were captured by Vulture.
SZA’s label, Top Dawg, announced that the singer would take a break from the ongoing TDE Championship Tour last week. “Her vocal chords are swollen, and she [has] to rest her voice to prevent any permanent damage,” the label wrote on Instagram. “We been monitoring her close[ly], and this is the reason she missed the Arizona and New Mexico dates. She’ll see the doctor again in a few days.”
SZA subsequently reposted her label’s statement with an additional explanatory note. “I’ve been touring for 11 months,” she wrote. “This didn’t happen overnight. I’ve been troubleshooting for a while now, and usually steroids and pushing through help. They don’t this time. I’m not sick; my voice just won’t fucking work. If I don’t pause now I’ll be forced to pause permanently.”
SZA has been touring relentlessly since the release of CTRL – her first album to come out through a major label – in June 2017. This March, the LP earned a platinum certification from the RIAA, indicating that it sold more than 1,000,000 album-equivalent units.