The wild SZA song dedicated to vaginas: “I know it’s necessary”
SZA is never afraid to project her thoughts and feelings into her music, even if they’re wildly explicit. The St. Louis singer fully established herself as a musician after signing to TDE in 2013, beginning with her Z EP in 2014 and becoming a global artist with 2017’s debut album, Ctrl. Even though the album dropped through a major label, RCA Records, that didn’t stop her from recording a song all about vaginas.
While many tracks might disguise a topic so explicit, ‘Doves in the Wind’ does nothing of the sort. The song mentions the word “pussy” 25 times over the four-minute running time, telling men to seek more from relationships than just sex. SZA reveals some pettiness in the track, informing a past lover that he wasn’t good in bed anyway.
She sings, “You could never trivialise pussy/ But a bum n*gga like you would try it (pussy)/ I know what you really ’bout/ High-key, your dick is weak buddy (pussy)/ It’s only replaced by a rubber substitute/ We ain’t feelin’ you, oh/ I think I caught a vibe, kinda feel a n*gga.”
Aside from her vocals, it’s this type of honesty that her fans have gravitated towards over the years. Whether revealing thoughts about killing her ex on ‘Kill Bill‘ or detailing her emotional struggles on ‘Gone Girl’, SZA is constantly willing to open up to the listener, using her songs as a cathartic way to process life’s toughest moments.
SZA discussed the song in the same breath as ‘Supermodel’, which was inspired by a break-up she experienced with her ex-boyfriend. The mystery man decided to call things off on Valentine’s Day, of all days, so SZA did the best possible thing in that situation: sleep with his friend.
“There’s a song where I talk about sleeping with my ex-boyfriend’s friend because he purposefully left me on Valentine’s Day, which will be the first time he hears about it, and I have a whole track dedicated to vaginas,” she told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s called ‘Doves in the Wind.'”
When asked if she was nervous about the song coming out, she said, “I am, but I’m not. I know it’s necessary. You gotta spring clean. I’m so overdue for a spring cleaning. This is like, life cleaning.” Speaking on her qualities as a partner, SZA also told The Breakfast Club, “There’s a lot more that I can give you besides pussy that can build you.”
Instead of a verse about any old topic, Kendrick Lamar understood the assignment with lyrics also centred around vaginas. Over the course of his verse, K. Dot addressed men being fascinated with the female body to a point where it’s unhealthy. He raps, “N*ggas’ll lose they mind for it, wine for it, dine for it (pussy)/ Spend time for it, see no coloured line for it (pussy)/ Double back, handicap, and go blind for it (pussy)/ Pussy got endless prisoners, pussy always revengin’ her.”
SZA had a vision for the song from the get-go. To match the song’s X-rated lyrics, she wanted the record to have a gritty sound that didn’t come across too pretty. Producer Cam O’bi, who has worked with Chance The Rapper, J Cole and SZA’s longtime collaborator, Isaiah Rashad, had just the thing for her.
“I was just at their crib making beats from scratch, playing them out loud on the speakers,” he told DJBooth. “It was really fun. After a while SZA told me what she wanted, she was like, ‘I don’t want anything pretty-sounding. I don’t want to sing over anything that’s feminine. Give me something dirty, something hood, something masculine.’ I thought about it and was like, ‘I got the perfect thing.'”