Solana’s LANA

Image courtesy of Cass Meyers

If you’re like me, a massive fan of the three-time Grammy winner, SZA, you may be keeping track of every update about her upcoming project titled LANA. To whatever degree of a fan you may be, I’m here to piece together everything known to the public about this artist's highly anticipated new music. In September of 2023, SZA hosted a free concert at the Navy Yard in Brooklyn, New York City. I, like a great number of her fans who weren’t able to be there, attended the concert vicariously via scattered videos on social media. While watching the show through threads, I saw that she announced a new project, LANA, and played three unreleased tracks that are supposed to be on the record. Fans took the liberty to title said unreleased tracks: “DTM (Diamond Boy),” “Boy From South Detroit” and “Saturn.” After that sneak peek, there was radio silence. No new announcements were made and the fandom was left in the dark, awaiting the release (and confirmation) of LANA. On the one-year anniversary of the sophomore album, SZA posted 6 cryptic posts all captioned “LANA.” Each picture had a parental advisory/content warning in the corner, conveying that they may be covers of an album, EP, or singles. On 3 of the 6, she wore a blue and white jersey similar to the one she sported on the cover of S.O.S. Another interesting observation is that when you drop the second “S” in S.O.S. and combine it with LANA, you get Solana – SZA’s real name. That little piece of information makes the project so much more special. In an interview with Variety, she expressed that when she was thirteen, she wanted to get a tattoo of her full name, Solona, however, it was $10 per letter. She only had $40 on her, so she decided to get “LANA.” It makes sense that LANA and S.O.S. connect because, at her free concert at the Navy Yard, SZA told fans LANA will be a continuation of S.O.S.

Along with this information, the artist has also been teasing a deluxe version of the album but more needs to be confirmed by SZA or her team about this in order to go further. On the ‘campctrl’ Instagram page, an official account dedicated to her fans, the bio has been updated to say, “In Lana We Trust.” All of these cryptic messages must mean something, right? Yes, they do. Although we weren’t given a brand new album or deluxe album, at the Grammys, SZA surprised us with the performance of unreleased song, “Saturn” alongside the hit singles “Snooze” and “Kill Bill.” Although this song is in no way a replica of her old music, the message behind the whimsical melody reminds me of “Anything” and “Far,” which are both songs where SZA talks about how she doesn’t feel as if she belongs, as if she’ll be better on Saturn. On February 22, without any promotion, SZA released “Saturn” as a single, a treat for fans who have been anxiously awaiting its arrival. 

Even though there is no solid release date or even confirmation of the birth of LANA, us devoted SZA fans will gladly, patiently wait for when the artist decides to bless our ears and minds with her extraordinary music.