DTM (song)

Last updated

"DTM"
Song by SZA
from the album Lana
Written2023
Released2024
Recorded2023
Length1:27 (Apple Music Live version) [1]
Label
Producer(s) Carter Lang

"DTM" is an unreleased song by American singer-songwriter SZA, reported to appear on her third studio album, Lana .

Contents

Background

American singer-songwriter SZA released her second studio album SOS on December 9, 2022, to widespread acclaim and high commercial success. [2] [3] It opened with a score of 94 on the review aggregate website Metacritic, [4] debuted atop the Billboard 200, broke a string of chart records, and spawned several career milestones. [5] SZA teased the imminent release of its deluxe version on Instagram upon SOS's release, [6] and she teased it again on a December 21 post, where she expressed gratitude for the album's number-one debut: "Imma take another swing at it for the deluxe then shut up for a while." [7]

SOS spawned six singles. The latest, "Snooze", was sent to radio in April 2023 after its slow-burn success on the Billboard Hot 100, with its music video released in August. [8] [9] SZA teased the video a few weeks prior, posting two clips of behind-the-scenes footage soundtracked to unreleased music. [10] The same snippet appeared again in the music video's outro, [11] which continued SZA's tradition of previewing upcoming songs at the end of music videos. [12] Fans and publications began calling the song "OD" and "Diamond Boy", [13] [14] and in a Rolling Stone interview, SZA revealed its official title as "DTM". She told the magazine the song would appear on the deluxe edition of SOS, entitled Lana. [15]

Music and lyrics

SZA continued to make music after the release of SOS, working with producers such as Carter Lang on Lana during occasional bursts of creativity. [16] Work on "DTM" began in mid-2023, around when she shared the Instagram preview, [16] with a stripped-down demo of the entire song that featured only guitars, a bassline, and soft vocals infused with a rap cadence. [17] After SZA recorded the demo, she sent it to Lang, who created a call and response between SZA and the music by adding other instruments around her melody such as drums [17] [18] and keyboards. [19] The song was finished around August, about a week after its first teaser. [16] The first parts of the final product are acoustic, and the drums appear later in the song. [20]

"DTM" gets its name from its line "Am I doing too much?" [16] [21] Meanwhile, the fan-titled "Diamond Boy" comes from the lyrics "Diamond boy, why you so shiny? / Diamond boy, come get behind me." [22] "DTM" is a ballad about love; according to SZA, it was the first love song she could remember writing about someone she "actively liked", which she did during the "thick of the romance". [17]

Release

"DTM" was originally set to be released as part of a single bundle for "Snooze", [16] before an acoustic version of "Snooze" featuring Canadian musician Justin Bieber was recorded and released in September, delaying the release of Lana and "DTM" as its lead single. [15] [17] In the meantime, SZA performed "DTM" in some shows of the SOS Tour, [23] [24] and prior to that, she debuted the song during an exclusive concert at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in celebration of SOS, where she announced Lana evolved into an album of its own. [25] Her performance of "DTM" at Brooklyn's Barclays Center during the SOS Tour was featured on a video series on Apple TV+ that premiered on February 1, 2024. [21] [22]

In mid-March 2024, SZA teased another unreleased song via her Instagram, posting a video of her in a bikini as she poses in front of a camping tent and sings the lyrics. In the comments, one fan asked about where "DTM" was, to which SZA replied: "on the deluxe I’m bout to drop". [26] [27]

Related Research Articles

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