SZA Details How Stevie Wonder Influenced Her Grammy-Winning Song ‘Saturn’

It was a celestial night for SZA, who took home her fifth Grammy trophy for best R&B song for “Saturn,” a song that expresses desire for things on our planet to be better

The artist, who will join Kendrick Lamar during the halftime show performance at Super Bowl LIX on February 9, shared backstage how Stevie Wonder’s song of the same name inspired her hit.

“It was such a casually written song, inspired by Stevie Wonder, and his reference to Saturn and how he talks about in that place there is less destruction and death and pollution and all these things, and part of me realizing there’s nowhere else to go. There is no Saturn. It’s one of the planets no one’s ever talked about visiting,” she said.

“I think similarly to ‘Good Days,’ I’m constantly living with the escape. I’m the escape personified, so I think I’m just craving escape in all my songs. And that’s what ‘Saturn is about—acceptance of where you are and also trying to escape to somewhere better.”

This marks the second year in a row SZA walked off with a best R&B song win. Her song “Snooze” garnered her the Grammy in 2024, when she always won for best progressive R&B album for SOS, and best pop duo/group performance for “Ghost In The Machine.”

But don’t try to pin her to any one musical category. “I don’t really think I’m in that [R&B] box. These are the parameters for which I’m being honored this evening and I’m grateful for that. With all the parameters, regardless of the label, the point is the reach and the impact and experience I’ve had creating all kinds of music and having that recognized by all types of people,” she said.

For aspiring songwriters and artists, she has this advice: “Get out of the genre bag and just do what you want and make it feel beautiful to you and make it make sense to you.”

Given all her success, she also has advice for herself. “Try harder. I just want to try harder and strive. I think for a long time I was afraid t strive and embarrassed to strive, especially in public because striving and failing is hard,” she said.

“But this is such a finite experience, our life… I just realized I finished my first arena tour, ever, and I’ll never be able to do that again. That’s it, it’s over. And now I’m doing my first stadium tour, ever. I just want to soak it up and be hyper-present so I that I can really, really collect myself, my goals, my desires, my gratitude, and just let that multiply and see what else God has for me.”