"Kill Bill"
Cover art of "Kill Bill": SZA behind a training dummy, holding her katana towards its neck
Single by SZA
from the album SOS
Written2022
ReleasedJanuary 10, 2023 (2023-01-10) (original)
April 14, 2023 (2023-04-14) (Doja Cat remix)
Recorded2022
Studio
  • Ponzu (Los Angeles)
  • Carter Lang's home studio (Chicago)
Genre
Length2:35 (original)
2:56 (Doja Cat remix)
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
SZA singles chronology
"Nobody Gets Me"
(2023) 		"Kill Bill"
(2023) 		"Special" (remix)
(2023)
Music video
"Kill Bill" on YouTube
Doja Cat remix cover
Cover art of the "Kill Bill" remix: SZA on a travelling motorcycle, wearing a black and red jumpsuit
Doja Cat singles chronology
"I Like You (A Happier Song)"
(2022) 		"Kill Bill" (remix)
(2023) 		"Paint the Town Red"
(2023)
Music video
Kill Bill (Remix) on YouTube

"Kill Bill" is a song by American singer-songwriter SZA from her second studio album, SOS (2022). The song gets its title from Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Volume 2 (2003–2004), a martial arts film duology that focuses on an assassin named the Bride and her quest to exact revenge on her ex-boyfriend through murder. Mirroring the films' plot, the song's lyrics discuss SZA's fantasy to kill an ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend out of jealousy. "Kill Bill" is an R&B song built around a midtempo, groovy rhythm and a detuned melody. Influenced by the boom bap subgenre of hip hop, it is backed by guitars, a bassline, and a flute sampled from a Prophet-6 synthesizer. The song's candid exploration of SZA's unfiltered, violent emotions were a point of praise for critics. They found her murder fantasies extreme but relatable to a degree, due to its underlying sentiments of doing whatever it takes for love.

Achieving success on streaming services, "Kill Bill" went number one in seven territories worldwide and reached the top 10 in eight more. It gave SZA her first number one on the Billboard Global 200. On January 10, 2023, RCA Records sent the song to US radio as the fifth single from SOS, attributing the decision to its streaming numbers. Boosted by a remix featuring American rapper Doja Cat three months later, the solo version of "Kill Bill" topped the US Billboard Hot 100, her first single to do so, after eight weeks at number two. It tied with three other songs for the second-most weeks at number two before reaching the top. On US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, "Kill Bill" broke the record set by "Old Town Road" (2019) for the chart's longest-running number one, with 21 weeks.

A music video for the song premiered the same day as its single release. Directed by Christian Breslauer, it reimagines several scenes from the Kill Bill films, with SZA as her version of the Bride and Vivica A. Fox, one of the actresses who starred in the duology, in a supporting role. SZA confronts her ex-boyfriend at the end and tears his heart out (with a special outro, set to SOS song, "Seek and Destroy", shows her bound with rope). On the SOS Tour, where she first performed "Kill Bill" live, she recreated various visual elements from the music video, including the costume. SZA had a spiked meteor hammer in hand that she swung across the stage, a callback to a fight scene in Volume 1.

"Kill Bill" is nominated at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best R&B Performance.[1][2]

Background

Refer to caption.
SZA performing in Ctrl the Tour (2017–2018)

SZA released her debut studio album, Ctrl, in 2017. Primarily an R&B album that deals with themes like heartbreak, Ctrl received widespread acclaim for SZA's vocals and the eclectic musical style, as well as the relatability, emotional impact, and confessional nature of the songwriting. The album brought SZA to mainstream fame, and critics credit it with establishing her status as a major figure in contemporary pop and R&B music and pushing the boundaries of the R&B genre.[note 2]

SZA alluded to possibly releasing her second album as early as August 2019,[10][11] during an interview with DJ Kerwin Frost.[12] It, she said, retained the candid and personal qualities of Ctrl. In her words, the album was "even more of me being less afraid of who am I when I have no choice[,] when I'm not out trying to curate myself and contain."[13] When SZA collaborated with Cosmopolitan for their February 2021 issue, she spoke about her creative process as such: "this album is going to be the shit that made me feel something in my...[heart] and in [my gut]".[14]

One of the tracks from the album, named SOS, is titled "Kill Bill". It gets its name from the Kill Bill films (2003–2004), a martial arts film duology directed by Quentin Tarantino.[15] The plot centers on Beatrix "the Bride" Kiddo and her plans to murder Bill, head of the enemy Deadly Viper assassins of which she was a past member. Bill was a former love interest who failed to have Kiddo killed on the day of her wedding.[16][17] While watching the films, Bill caught SZA's attention, who found him a complex and nuanced character that "doesn't understand why he did what he did".[18]

Of Bill, she further spoke, "he's void of emotion, but he loved the Bride so much that he couldn't stand her to be with anyone else."[19] In Volume 2, Bill confessed jealousy was his motive for trying to assassinate Kiddo. He felt enraged at her for two reasons—her marriage to someone else and her unborn baby with the groom. Bill said: "Not only are you not dead, you're getting married to some fucking jerk and you're pregnant. I overreacted. […] There are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard."[20]

Music and production

"Kill Bill"
Creating a midtempo, groovy rhythm, "Kill Bill" uses boom bap–influenced drum machines, guitars, and a bassline from an electric guitar tuned down an octave. Flute-like sounds from a Prophet-6 synthesizer give it its detuned melody.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

"Kill Bill" incorporates prominent, basic eighth notes[21] and is built around a midtempo, groovy rhythm[7][22][23] and a detuned melody.[24][6] The song has a retro, late 1990s–early 2000s sound, influenced by a subgenre of hip hop music called boom bap.[25] Music journalists have described the song as predominantly pop and R&B,[26][24] and some observed elements of associated genres like psychedelic pop, pop-soul,[27] and doo-wop.[28] Will Dukes of Rolling Stone wrote the "eerie chords [exuded] modish late-Sixties cool".[29]

"Kill Bill" was produced by Rob Bisel and Carter Lang, who wrote the song with SZA.[30] Its creation, by SZA's account, was "super easy", and she deemed it a "one take, one night" type of song.[note 3] While work on SOS had begun by 2019, "Kill Bill" was recorded in 2022 alongside a significant number of other tracks due to bursts of productivity from time pressure. Lang commented, "that's when [we] started feeling like, hey, 'We gotta do this shit like, it's been some years.' We bottled up that energy and everything was just sort of a preparation for that moment."[30]

Production began when Bisel, in his Los Angeles home's Ponzu Studios, played some chords on his Prophet-6 synthesizer. With it, he used Ableton to sample the synthesizer's flute-like sound.[25] After adding a bassline from an electric guitar tuned down an octave, Bisel was unsure where he wanted the song to go, so he sent the Ableton clip to Lang for him to work on the beats. What he returned was a demo with more bass, as well as some guitars and a boom bap–style drum machine. They also incorporated a choir and backing vocals into the song. Most of the final version's instruments were recorded at Lang's home studio in Chicago.[25][30]

Bisel asked Punch, president of SZA's label Top Dawg Entertainment, if he could do the mixing for "Kill Bill" on his own, to which Punch agreed. To Bisel, if anyone else took the task, the sonic vision he conjured for the song would get diluted: "I really wanted to see it through all the way to the end." His mentality for the sessions, which consisted of 120 tracks, was mixing the song "as if [he] had never heard the song before", a departure from his usual approach. Since reinforcing the song's boom bap influences was his primary goal, part of the task was making the drums from the rough recordings louder.[25]

"Kill Bill", which was under the working title "Igloo", had roughly three to six different demos from which Bisel and Lang had to pick for SZA. When she listened to the demos, she immediately gravitated towards the boom bap beat, which Bisel and Lang happened to like the most. One week later, SZA was alone with Bisel in the studio for recording sessions, asking him to loop the beat in the background. He left her alone in a corner to give her space to ideate. It took five minutes for SZA to come up with the melody and lyrics for the hook, which she wrote on her phone. Humming the melodies, she turned to Bisel to say about the lyrics, "I have an idea. This might be a little too crazy, but let me know what you think."[25][30]

Lyrics

SZA told Glamour in 2022 that many tracks in SOS centered around themes of revenge, heartbreak, and "being pissed": "I've never raged the way that I should have. This is my villain era, and I'm very comfortable with that. It is in the way I say no [...] It's in the fucked up things that I don't apologize for."[32] The premise of "Kill Bill" is heavily based on the Kill Bill films, a reimagining of Thurman's tale of revenge—the lyrics follow SZA as she avenges her broken heart by murdering her ex-boyfriend for quickly moving on from their relationship.[20][22] Nora Holland of Hot Press noted the violent lyrics are juxtaposed by SZA's soft, croon-like vocals that suggest wholesomeness.[33] Due to the violence, some radio stations played a censored version of "Kill Bill" with the word "kill" replaced by the sound of a slashing blade.[34]

In the first verse, SZA acts analogously to Bill, resentful about the new girlfriend that her ex-boyfriend has met: "Hate to see you with some other broad, know you happy / Hate to see you happy if I'm not the one drivin'."[20] Restraining her murderous urges, she tries to look at the situation from a rational perspective.[22] In a Slant Magazine review, Paul Attard writes that SZA explores how intense love and intense anger towards somebody can often coexist with one another. In spite of her fury, her love for her ex-boyfriend persists.[15] She tries to navigate her issues through consultations with a therapist, making her dryly say she is mature and mockingly congratulate herself for it.[22][35][36]

Her therapist has advised her to seek other men, but SZA loves her ex-boyfriend to such a degree that she would rather still be with him than with anyone else. According to her, if she cannot have him back, then "no one should".[6][37] What follows is the hook, in which she openly fantasizes about killing him and his new girlfriend. She acknowledges, self-aware, that her intrusive thoughts are unhealthy and wonders "how'd I get here?"[38][39] Some critics argued that SZA amplifies the hook's unsettling nature and criminal themes using melodies evocative of lullabies.[7][39][40] For Philippine Daily Inquirer journalist Carl Martin Agustin, the hook conjures the imagery of "the bride preparing her mark for his eternal slumber".[21] Thurman's character manifests itself within SZA in the hook, moving the perspective away from Bill's. Despite hesitations, she begins her plans for revenge. SZA ends the hook with the line "Rather be in jail than alone."[20]

The song's next lyrics narrate how she carefully peruses past messages with her ex-boyfriend that might implicate her in the murder.[22] The final hook contains several line changes[20] that mark the culmination of the violent ideations that manifested in the first hook. SZA enacts the double homicide, solidifying the song's nature as a murder ballad.[41] Reasoning with herself, she claims what she did to her ex-boyfriend was an act of love[29] and is not something that she regrets doing.[6] Music journalists from Triple J[42] and Pitchfork found this a humorous instance of irony. Pitchfork's Julianne Escobedo Shepherd wrote: "It's so funny to imagine killing someone and his new girl and then have a fleeting second thought about it. Like, 'Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. Oh well!'"[41]

The last lyric of the final hook, and the last lyric of the song, contrasts with the first hook. "I might kill my ex, not the best idea / His new girlfriend's next," becomes "I just killed my ex, not the best idea / Killed his girlfriend next."[20] This final lyric shows her admission she would pick damnation in hell over his absence from her life. The "Rather be in jail than alone" from the previous hooks becomes "Rather be in hell than alone."[20][43] Some critics wrote that the last line unveiled the song's underlying tones of loneliness and turned "Kill Bill" into a tragedy.[41][44] In Nylon, Steffanee Wang thought it "will make you wonder how SZA can generate such devastation from such simplicity".[45]

Commercial performance

"Kill Bill" was a success on streaming services,[46] with two weeks atop the Billboard Global 200 chart[47] and four weeks atop the US Streaming Songs chart.[48] It was SZA's first song to top the Billboard Global 200, and it did so in early January 2023, bolstered by around 64 million international streams. It debuted within the top 5 three weeks prior with around 57.9 million streams,[49][50] 36.9 million of which were from the United States. With these first-week US streaming figures, "Kill Bill" debuted atop Streaming Songs on the issue dated December 24, 2022, and marked her first number 1 song there. It became the first non-holiday song since 2018 to be the top entry on the chart for the week of Christmas.[51]

Once its airplay in the United States rose, "Kill Bill" reached the top 10 of the Radio Songs chart, SZA's first solo song to do so.[52] It was her third and fastest to top Rhythmic Airplay, the chart for rhythmic contemporary radio. The first was "Kiss Me More", a collaboration with American rapper Doja Cat, and the second was "I Hate U"; both were released in 2021. Rhythmic Airplay was the first radio chart "Kill Bill" topped. The song reached number one in early March 2023, after a 12% rise in audience impressions from the previous tracking week. With increasing reach in rhythmic radio, as well as urban and pop radio, "Kill Bill" entered the Radio Songs top 5 with 71.5 million in audience.[53] On Pop Airplay, it was SZA's second song to reach number one, after "Kiss Me More", and her first in a lead credit.[54]

With "Kill Bill" and "Nobody Gets Me", another track from the album, SZA acquired her sixth and seventh top 10 songs in the United States.[55] Meanwhile, in Canada, "Kill Bill" debuted at number 5 and later peaked at number 3.[56][57] SZA achieved her highest debut on the US Billboard Hot 100 when the song entered the chart as an album track in December 2022, at number three.[58] Before "Kill Bill", "Kiss Me More" had been her highest-charting song, with a peak of number three. "Kill Bill" surpassed the record when it rose to number two in its fifth week on the chart. Boosted by its release to radio and the premiere of its music video, its streams rose by 11%, airplay audience by 742%, and digital downloads by 37% compared to its fourth-week statistics.[59]

The song spent 17 of its first 18 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 in the top 10. Of those 18 weeks, 8 were spent at number two.[60] Three songs kept "Kill Bill" from the top spot during its non-consecutive runs at number two. These are "Anti-Hero" (2022) by Taylor Swift,[59] "Flowers" (2023) by Miley Cyrus, and "Last Night" (2023) by Morgan Wallen.[61] After 8 weeks at number two, "Kill Bill" topped the Billboard Hot 100, becoming SZA's first number one in the United States. It tied with three other songs for the second-most weeks at number two before reaching the top, behind "Bad Guy" (2019) by Billie Eilish (9 weeks).[62] During the tracking week, the song's streams increased by 32% to 28.3 million, but its airplay audience decreased by 1% to 86.5 million.[63] On US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, "Kill Bill" was SZA's second number-one debut, after "I Hate U",[64] and was at number one for 21 weeks. It broke the record for the longest time a song spent atop the chart, surpassing Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" (2019),[65] despite decreasing consumption of the song by its 22nd tracking week.[66] During the succeeding tracking week, it was streamed 17.3 million times (down 5%), heard in radio by 69.2 million (down 5%), and sold 1,000 downloads (down 4%).[67]

The song had several top 5 peaks in the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions. "Kill Bill" spent multiple weeks at number one in New Zealand[68] and Singapore,[69][70] and it was the highest-charting international song in Malaysia for over a week.[71][72] It also went number one in Indonesia and the Philippines,[73] and it reached number 4 and number 3 in Vietnam and the MENA's regional chart, respectively.[74][75] "Kill Bill" marked SZA's first chart-topping song in Australia,[76] where it was certified quintuple platinum for selling over 350,000 units.[73][77] It received another platinum certification in New Zealand for selling over 30,000 units.[78]

In mid–December 2022, "Kill Bill" debuted within the top 15 of the UK Singles Chart.[79] It became SZA's first top 10 solo song in the United Kingdom at the beginning of 2023, once December ended and Christmas songs began leaving the chart.[80][81] It peaked at number 3 around the same time in Ireland;[68] the following week, "Kill Bill" reached a new peak of number 3 in the UK Singles Chart, with 35,780 sales recorded during the tracking period. It ties "Kiss Me More" as her highest-charting song in the country.[81][82] Elsewhere in Europe, "Kill Bill" was a top 20 song in the Nordic countries, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia, Switzerland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.[note 4]

Critical reception

Zoe Guy at Vulture noted the song for being an integral part of "an arsenal of pop-culture references" throughout the album and pointed out the "already well-seasoned lyrics about growing up".[38] Nylon chose the track as the top essential song of the album, praising the artist's ability to showcase her own emotions through "unspooling diaristic toxic thoughts and worst case scenarios".[45] Shepherd referred to the song as a "stalker lullaby" that the singer uses to convey "all her darkest thoughts".[39] Jon Pareles of The New York Times thought that Rowe sounded "both lighthearted and dangerous" on this "plush R&B ballad".[26] Melissa Ruggieri of USA Today included "Kill Bill" in her top 10 list of 2023's best songs,[83] while Jenn Pelly ranked it as the sixth-best song out of 100 on Pitchfork's year-end list[84] and Heran Mamo ranked it as the best song out of 100 on Billboard's year-end list.[85]

Discussing why the song became commercially successful and warmly received by critics and fans, Billboard writers pointed towards the emotional impact of its songwriting. They found the melodramatic nature of "Kill Bill" fun and wrote that although the sentiments echoed in the lyrics were extreme, there was a degree of relatability to the song's exploration of violence for the sake of love. As one of them, Cydney Lee, wrote: "while I obviously am not encouraging anyone to act on this, what woman (especially) hasn't emotionally been there before?? Also, people just love violence, and seem to have a weird fascination with 'crazy in love' relationship dynamics — and with it being track two on SOS, it almost felt like it was setting the tone for the album."[86]

Accolades

List of awards and nominations received by "Kill Bill"
Year Award Category Result Ref.
2023 BET Awards Video of the Year Won [87]
Viewer's Choice Award Nominated
2023 MTV Video Music Awards Video of the Year Nominated [88]
Song of the Year Nominated
Best Direction Nominated
Best Editing Nominated
Song of Summer Nominated [89]
2023 MTV Europe Music Awards Best Song Nominated [90]
Best Video Nominated
2023 UK Music Video Awards Best R&B/Soul Video – International Nominated [91]
2023 Billboard Music Awards Top Hot 100 Song Nominated [92]
Top Streaming Song Nominated
Top Billboard Global 200 Song Nominated
Top R&B Song Won
2023 Soul Train Music Awards Song of the Year Nominated [93]
Video of the Year Nominated
The Ashford and Simpson Songwriter's Award Nominated
2024 Grammy Awards Record of the Year Pending [94]
Song of the Year Pending
Best R&B Performance Pending

Release

Original

From April to May 2022, SZA told media outlets that she had recently finished the album in Hawaii and said it was coming soon.[95] During a Billboard cover story published in November, SZA revealed the album title and release date, which was scheduled sometime next month.[96] On December 5, 2022, she posted the album's track list on Twitter, and SOS was released four days later. Out of 23 songs, "Kill Bill" appears as the second track;[97][98] following its success on streaming platforms, RCA Records chose it as the next radio single from the album.[80]

RCA and Top Dawg Entertainment sent the song to US pop,[99][100] rhythmic,[101] and urban radio[102] on January 10, 2023, as the fifth single from SOS.[103][note 5] Originally, only "Nobody Gets Me" was scheduled to impact pop radio on January 10. However, RCA and various radio programmers eventually decided to promote the two songs simultaneously despite the intricacies of planning dual singles, citing the large streaming numbers that "Kill Bill" gained in December and the radio-friendly appeal of the lyrics and production.[34] "Kill Bill" became one of the week's most-added songs on pop and rhythmic formats,[105] with 2,257 plays from 129 pop radio stations.[34] Top Dawg and RCA pushed it to R&B radio stations three weeks later.[106]

On January 13, 2023, Top Dawg and RCA released a four-track bundle of the song to digital download and streaming platforms.[107] Apart from the original version of "Kill Bill", the release contains a sped-up version, an instrumental version, and an a cappella version.[108] An acoustic version of the song, with a different cover art, was released on January 24.[109] The sped-up version capitalizes and is based on a viral trend on TikTok where users would increase the pitch and tempo of certain songs and post them on the application. One user shared a sped-up audio of "Kill Bill" upon the release of SOS, and it was viewed over 21.7 million times, liked over 1.9 million times, and reposted in over 1.1 million videos,[110][105] boosting streams for the song.[86]

Remix

"Kiss Me More" marked the first collaboration between SZA and Doja Cat,[111] serving as the lead single from the latter's third studio album, Planet Her (2021).[112] Their next collaboration was set to be "Shirt", SOS's third single.[113] Three months after SZA teased "Shirt" was a collaboration, Punch told Complex that Doja Cat was to feature not on the song's original version, but on a remix instead.[114] Because of an emergency vocal surgery that Doja Cat underwent, the remix's release did not happen. SZA reacted in disappointment, and she hoped that she can work with her again on other projects.[115]

On April 14, 2023, Doja Cat hinted at another collaboration with SZA on Instagram, tagging her on a post that read "9 pm." On Twitter, the two had a public, back-and-forth interaction. Doja Cat told SZA "sis... I did something bad", to which SZA responded "Jesus.. What is it."[116] A remix of "Kill Bill", featuring Doja Cat, was surprise-released hours later, at 9 pm.[117][118] With the release came an animated video posted to YouTube that shows a pixelated Doja Cat as she uses a ball and chain to fight enemies.[119] The remix was ranked as the 16th best song in Rolling Stone's year-end listicle for 2023[120] and the 6th in the BBC's.[121]

Music video

Background

Vivica A. Fox attending a 2017 exposition
Vivica A. Fox, one of the starring actresses in the Kill Bill films, makes a cameo in the music video.

SZA expressed her gratitude for fans' warm reception of "Kill Bill" by posting a 20-second teaser of the music video to Twitter on December 29, 2022,[104][122] having alluded to its creation around a week prior during an interview with Entertainment Weekly.[123] The video was directed by Christian Breslauer and produced by Luga Podesta through his production company London Alley Entertainment.[124] It premiered on YouTube on the same day as the song's release, briefly going private after its first 10 minutes of availability before being made public again.[125]

With the video, SZA aimed to create something more narrative-centric compared to her past music videos which, while containing a few story beats, did not have full, coherent plotlines. In Breslauer's words, she wanted "less performance and [more] acting"; the result was a short action film heavily inspired by the Kill Bill duology.[124] The music video recreates several scenes and plot points from the duology and features Vivica A. Fox, the actress who starred in Kill Bill as a Deadly Viper and Thurman's enemy Vernita Green, in a secondary role.[126][127] Meanwhile, SZA appears as a recreation of Thurman's character. She appears in a red and black jumpsuit similar to Thurman's yellow and black one, and she uses a katana as her fighting weapon.[104][128]

Pre-production began in the middle of December 2022, when Top Dawg approached London Alley to produce the video, and principal photography took place six days later. The scheduled period for filming was one day before the company's Christmas break, so all scenes had to be completed within 19 or 20 hours, in contrast to the usual two or three days allocated for similar music videos. Many of the scenes in question were split-screen shots, inspired by the cinematography of several 1970s films. Regarding this, Breslauer said: "Tarantino has kind of made his name on grabbing from all these different genres and kind of stitching them together. So we wanted to do the same thing."[124]

SZA had prominent authority in the creative direction; for example, she performed most of her stunts despite little time to choreograph.[124] She had been promoting specific tracks from SOS by using the outros of her music videos to tease an upcoming song,[86][note 6] and she wanted to continue the trend with the "Kill Bill" video. Her choice for the outro song was the album track "Seek & Destroy". It contains the line "I had to do it to you", which she deemed fitting because when applied in the context of "Kill Bill", the lyrics captured SZA's celebration of revenge and the glory it brought her. She asked someone with expertise in shibari to tie her upside down, wanting the scene to serve as the visuals for the outro.[124]

Plot

The opening scene contains the first out of many Kill Bill references, set in a trailer reminiscent of the one in which Budd, another of Thurman's sworn enemies, resided. During this, the boyfriend breaks up with SZA and leaves her in the trailer before he tells his gunmen, who act as the video's Deadly Vipers, to shoot her dead while she is inside.[125][131] She survives the assault and gets in a car driven by Fox's character, who takes her to a warehouse where she prepares to enact vengeance on the hitmen.[103][126] SZA dresses up in the jumpsuit, gets a katana which she uses to decapitate a dummy, and drives on a motorcycle with the intent of finding her ex-boyfriend.[128][131] The scene with Fox was the last one filmed during production.[124]

SZA arrives at a location analogous to the films' House of Blue Leaves, a Japanese bar that served as the headquarters for O-Ren Ishii, a high-ranking assassin of the Deadly Vipers. In there, she confronts several yakuza bodyguards who represent Ishii's Crazy 88, kill them one by one, and enter a room to face her ex-boyfriend.[132][125][133] Drawn in an anime art style and added in post-production, the confrontation scene is an allusion to the animated sequence that introduced Ishii's backstory in Volume 1.[103][124] The video ends as SZA approaches the man, rips his heart out, and licks it, fulfilling her revenge. A naked and tied-up SZA, hung upside down from the warehouse ceiling, appears in the outro while a snippet of "Seek & Destroy" plays,[133][134] which Vulture surmised was hinting at a possible music video for the song.[126]

Live performances

SZA in front of a red stage screen, with silhouettes of defeated fighters in the background
SZA performing "Kill Bill" during the SOS Tour

SZA first performed "Kill Bill" live on the SOS Tour, during a concert in Columbus, Ohio. It took place at the Schottenstein Center on February 21, 2023.[135] When the tour's concerts neared their end, she would change her outfit to wear red biker pants and a motor suit, similar to her look for the music video. Recreating the Crazy 88 sequence, SZA had a spiked ball and chain in hand that she swung across the stage. Her prop was a callback to the fight scene in Volume 1 between Thurman and one of Ishii's fighters[136][137]—the fighter in question was Gogo Yubari, who armed herself with a meteor hammer, a weapon consisting of a chain and a weight attached to both ends.[138]

At the 2023 iHeartRadio Jingle Ball, held in early December, SZA performed "Kill Bill" as part of her headlining set. She, along with a group of backup dancers, brandished machetes on stage to complement the lyrics.[139]

Credits

Adapted from Sound on Sound[25] and the liner notes of SOS[140]

Recording and management

Personnel

Note

  1. ^ Mellotron sounds came from Prophet-6 synthesizer

Charts

Certifications

Certifications for "Kill Bill"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[77] 5× Platinum 350,000‡
Austria (IFPI Austria)[213] Platinum 30,000‡
Belgium (BEA)[214] Platinum 40,000‡
Brazil (Pro-Música Brasil)[215] Diamond 160,000‡
Canada (Music Canada)[216] 6× Platinum 480,000‡
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)[217] Platinum 90,000‡
France (SNEP)[218] Platinum 200,000‡
Hungary (MAHASZ)[219] 2× Platinum 8,000‡
Italy (FIMI)[220] Gold 50,000‡
Mexico (AMPROFON)[221] Platinum 140,000‡
New Zealand (RMNZ)[78] 3× Platinum 90,000‡
Poland (ZPAV)[222] Platinum 50,000‡
Portugal (AFP)[223] 3× Platinum 30,000‡
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[224] Platinum 20,000‡
United Kingdom (BPI)[225] Platinum 600,000‡
United States (RIAA)[226] 5× Platinum 5,000,000‡
Streaming
Greece (IFPI Greece)[227] Platinum 2,000,000†
Sweden (GLF)[228] Platinum 8,000,000†

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
† Streaming-only figures based on certification alone.

Release history

Release history and formats for "Kill Bill"
Region Date Format Version Label(s) Ref.
United States January 10, 2023 Contemporary hit radio Original
[100]
Rhythmic contemporary radio [101]
Urban contemporary radio [102]
Various January 13, 2023
Four-track single [107]
January 24, 2023 Acoustic [229]
United States January 31, 2023 Urban adult contemporary radio Original [106]
Italy February 3, 2023 Radio airplay Sony Italy [230]
Various April 14, 2023
  • Digital download
  • streaming
 Doja Cat remix
  • Top Dawg
  • RCA
 [231]
Italy Radio airplay Sony Italy [232]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Amala Zandile Dlamini is also credited as a songwriter on the remix.
  2. ^ Cited to multiple sources:
    • Vulture: "Raw, candid writing isn't new for SZA; it's what made the previous album, Ctrl, such a breakout and one of the high marks of the confessional R&B; of the past decade."[3]
    • The Recording Academy: "The release of her critically acclaimed debut album Ctrl in 2017 solidified the artist not only as an R&B mainstay, but soundtracked the heartbreaks and growing pains of millions of young people. With her eloquent vocals and layered storytelling abilities, listeners felt every word like it was their own."[4]
    • The Line of Best Fit: "her debut Ctrl has ascended to classic status, going down as one of the decade's best and cementing SZA's voice at the forefront of contemporary R&B, and of pop."[5]
    • NME: Ctrl "ushered in a new era for R&B, one where the genre's boundaries shifted, bringing new levels of inventiveness into a classic sound and fusing it with indie, alternative, trap and more [...] SZA herself spent the aftermath of Ctrl trying to grapple with her new stardom and the huge impact that had on her life."[6]
    • The Daily Telegraph: "Ctrl, the triple-platinum, four-time Grammy nominated debut that propelled SZA to popstar status"[7]
    • The New Yorker: "Ctrl opened a portal—one that represented not just a major leap for the artist but a breakthrough for the genre itself. Her alternative slow jams pushed her voice to the fore and laid bare all the quirks of her dating life, establishing her as a distinguished millennial anecdotalist in the process."[8]
    • Consequence: In Ctrl, "SZA's personal style of lyricism has always read like an endless diary entry, and the transcendent nature of her genre-shifting abilities helped revolutionize modern R&B and pop."[9]
  3. ^ When "Kill Bill" broke her record for highest-charting song in the United States, she was furious that the song that achieved such success was not one that took much effort to make. She said in Billboard: "I knew it would be something that pissed me off. It's always a song that I don't give a fuck about that's just super easy, not the shit that I put so much heart and energy into."[31]
  4. ^ See the charts section for the exact peaks.
  5. ^ The first four singles from SOS before "Kill Bill" were "Good Days", "I Hate U", "Shirt", and "Nobody Gets Me".[104]
  6. ^ It began with the inclusion of a snippet of "Good Days" (2020), SOS's lead single, at the end of the video for standalone single "Hit Different" (2020). "Shirt" (2022), the album's third single, was teased at the outro for the "Good Days" music video; the "Shirt" video itself features a teaser of the album track "Blind" (2022).[129][130]

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