REPLAY: SZA on Her Health, Family History & Becoming Her Own Advocate

Mary Alice Haney (0:08)

Hey, y'all, I'm Mary Alice Haney.

Thaïs Aliabadi (0:11)

And I'm Dr. Thais Aliabadi.

Welcome to SheMd, the podcast for women who want to own their own health. In this episode, we interview one of my incredibly kind and talented patients, musical artist SZA.

Mary Alice Haney (0:27)

We actually recorded this episode a month before the Grammys. And so you'll hear our excitement leading up to the award season. And you probably heard, but she did end up winning three Grammys. My kids and I were jumping on the couch. She won best R&B song, best progressive R&B album, and best pop duo. We were so lucky to have her on the podcast to talk about her career, her lifetime risk of breast cancer, and how she may just text Dr. A as much as I do. Thanks for joining us in this amazing conversation with SZA.

This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for a physician's medical advice. You should regularly consult your medical provider in matters relating to your own health. Our guest today is one of the biggest superstars in the world. She is an amazing musician. She's an artist. She's a fashionista. She's also one of Dr. A's patients. And we're so lucky to have you today. Hello.

SZA (1:30)

All right.

Mary Alice Haney (1:31)

SZA.

SZA (1:32)

Yeah.

Mary Alice Haney (1:33)

Give me your entire name and tell me where SZA came from.

SZA (1:37)

Salana Imani Rowe is my entire name. SZA is like an acronym derived from the divine alphabet. If you're like familiar with Wu Tang or anything like that, a five percenter is like an older ideology where each letter stands for different ideologies. So S stands for self sovereignty, like sovereignty of oneself and savior of oneself. And then Z stands for zigzag, which is like enlightenment of oneself. And then A stands for Allah or God, whatever you consider the most high. And so yeah, all those names.

Mary Alice Haney (2:12)

And then when, how old were you when you took on that name?

SZA (2:15)

Well, that was just like part of my, my friends call me SOS or SOSA because my name is Solana and they just make it SOS or SOSA or whatever for sure. But I feel like I couldn't make my name be like SOSA for an artist name because I think Chief Keith, this artist had just came out at the same time and he's like, he's a rapper from Chicago and people were just getting confused. And I honestly thought it was really cool because it's such a juxtaposition, but yeah. So then SZA was born and then yeah.

Mary Alice Haney (2:45)

Well, it's the prettiest name and I have to tell you, I'm not cool at all with my kids. They just think that I'm like a weird, like they just don't know. Even when I had, you know, I was a huge fashion designer and had celebrities wearing my clothes, they were like, they could care less. They found out you were coming on this podcast and they were like, mom, SZA.

And they started playing your music, which I had heard before, but I was like, here's an artist whose voice is so beautiful in this world of men, whose message is also really beautiful. And I just have to tell you, like as a mother and as a woman, I just was very inspired by you. So thank you so much for coming in. Can you tell me a little bit about how y'all met? And we're going to kind of dig into everything, preventative breast cancer prevention and why we're all here.

SZA (3:31)

Basically, I came to Dr. A because I had a lot of allergies and I had so many allergies, I didn't know what was going on with me. I'm like, it's coming out, it's like eudokaria and like dermatitis on my face, like around my mouth, on my chin.

Mary Alice Haney (3:42)

Was it stress related?

SZA (3:43)

No, I don't, I still, I'm like with a rheumatologist right now. It came out that I had like a positive ANA, which like is a sign of inflammation and sometimes lupus. Yeah, yeah. And so like, you could take lupus medication.

Mary Alice Haney (3:54)

It doesn't mean you have lupus.

SZA (3:56)

Right, but you could, right. Well, depending on your other factors, like the other things that come out in your blood work, like your protein and your urine and all that kind of stuff, which I sometimes have and sometimes don't. But, and then when I went to her, she was telling me things about like my testosterone levels and PCOS and all these things that like I was played with but didn't really know what was actually happening to me. And I don't know, she had such a very like, not nonchalant, but she was so chill about things that I was terrified about.