Smoking on My Ex Pack

SZA during the Ctrl the Tour in Toronto, Canada (2017)

SZA released her debut studio album, Ctrl, in 2017. Primarily an R&B album that deals with themes like heartbreak, it received widespread acclaim for SZA's vocals and the eclectic musical style, as well as the emotional impact and confessional nature of its songwriting. The album brought SZA to mainstream fame. 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 3] Her next studio album was highly anticipated,[8][9] and she alluded to its completion as early as August 2019,[10][11] during an interview with DJ Kerwin Frost.[12]

From April to May 2022, SZA told media outlets that she had recently finished the album in Hawaii and said that it was coming soon.[13] Wanting to experiment with genres she had not yet incorporated in her discography, she envisioned it to be an amalgamation of various disparate musical styles, or in her words, "a little bit of everything". While some tracks were balladic or soft, certain others had an "aggressive" sound. Apart from the "traditional" R&B that had been a staple of SZA's past works, the album also contained prominent elements of hip hop music.[14][15]

SZA wanted to include rap as a major element of her second studio album, SOS (2022). The media tended to categorize her as an R&B artist, and she staunchly disagreed with the description. In her view, it was because she was a Black woman, to which she asserted: "I love making Black music, period. Something that is just full of energy. Black music doesn't have to just be R&B [...] Why can't we just be expansive and not reductive?"[16][17]

SOS contains three rap songs—one in the beginning, one in the end, and one in the middle. "Smoking on My Ex Pack" is the rap song in the middle.[18] Built around a chipmunk soul production,[19] it incorporates a looped, sped-up sample[20][21] of "Open Up Your Eyes" (1981) by Webster Lewis[22] alongside hard-hitting drum beats that give it a boom bap musical style.[23] Jay Versace, a record producer and former comedian, produced "Smoking on My Ex Pack".[20]

Versace, whom SZA credits with getting her interested in creating "aggressive" rap music, created the song's beat sometime in 2022. It was three years after the two first met up for the album's recording sessions. Versace was inspired by the boom bap music he had heard growing up, much of which played on his car radio when he was driving with his father. For "Smoking on My Ex Pack", he wanted SZA's take on these childhood songs: "I literally made that for her [...] That was specifically for her."[24]

Versace chose to sample "Open Up Your Eyes" because of his interest in love ballads from the latter half of the 20th century, citing the "really crazy instrumentation in their music". He particularly liked the song's horns and vocals, so he created the sample in Ableton and formed a beat around it. Once he finished, he sent the audio file to SZA, who started writing the lyrics almost immediately. About the production, she texted him: "Your beats are so easy to write to. Why am I already writing lyrics right now?"[24]

SZA said that while creating SOS, she learned that sometimes she could act like a villainous "bitch" and she had to come to terms with this perception of herself. According to her, many songs on the album centered around themes of revenge and "being pissed" to a degree that she had never felt before. She described how these feelings manifested in its tracks: "It is in the way I say no [...] It's in the fucked up things that I don't apologize for."[25][26] Versace encouraged her to "talk her shit" on "Smoking on My Ex Pack",[24] the lyrics to which she wrote to dispel a narrative that she only made "sad girl music".[27][28] Its initial version was over two minutes long, but SZA scrapped the song's first half because she did not feel confident enough in her rapping skills.[24]

The released version of "Smoking on My Ex Pack" is 1 minute and 23 seconds long.[29] Spin compared its lyrics to blind items, or articles that do not disclose the identity of their subject and are frequently gossip pieces.[30] Braggadocio is a major element of the songwriting.[31] In the song's verse, SZA communicates her desirability to men[32] and announces "them hoe accusations weak" and "them bitch accusations true". After revealing how she embodies those traits by saying she presents an unfriendly attitude and has sex with men she deems heart throbs, she finds various ways to insult her ex-partners.[20][33]

SZA raps about having "your favorite rapper" blocked on social media, saying she heard a rumor that his "dick was wack". She deliberately ignores many athletes who try to flirt in her messages and insist she text them back; because her lesser side loves "all the cap", SZA refuses to make exceptions for any of the men she does not acknowledge.[18][20][33] Then, she addresses an ex-boyfriend seeking to rekindle their relationship: "He screamin', 'Gеt back together', I'm screamin', 'Back of thе bus, trick!'"[34] SZA compares her former romantic partners to a character from The Simpsons named Sideshow Bob, a conservative TV personality and clown who becomes a criminal as the series progresses:[35]

Got you talkin' crazy
Abracadabra, you niggas Sideshow
I'm Bobbin' like Psycho

During a Billboard cover story published in November 2022, SZA revealed that the album's release date was scheduled for sometime during the following month.[36] She posted the album's track list on Twitter on December 5, and SOS was released four days later. Out of 23 songs, "Smoking on My Ex Pack" appears as the eleventh track.[37][38] One month later, American rapper Latto performed a freestyle rap over the song's beat,[39][40] garnering a positive response from SZA. On Instagram, SZA wrote: "OH ITS UPPPPPP [sic]", paired with a heart emoji.[22]

After the album's release, "Smoking on My Ex Pack" charted in the United States and Canada, with peaks at numbers 52 and 61, respectively.[41][42] It peaked at number 23 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart[43] and number 71 on the Billboard Global 200.[44] "Smoking on My Ex Pack" had its live performance debut during the SOS Tour, performed while SZA went backstage for an outfit change, which the stage screen captured.[note 4]

Critics were positive about SZA's experimenting with rap on "Smoking on My Ex Pack", lauding it for showcasing her more confident side. They welcomed its lyrics for marking a departure from her other works, which primarily focused on angst and vulnerability, and its placement between tracks that, in contrast, focused on SZA's insecurities about her relationships. Much of the praise focused on the harshness and unfiltered nature of her songwriting. They found it clever, funny, or emotionally impactful.[note 5] Some music journalists wrote that it best exemplified the album's lyrical motif of begrudging disapproval towards SZA's ex-partners and was the album's "most stank-face-inducing" track.[note 6]

Another point of commentary was SZA's flow and delivery, attributes that led many critics to think her first attempts at rap music demonstrated her potential to become a good rapper.[note 7] In the words of The Sydney Morning Herald's Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen: "she takes to rapping for the first time and she sounds like a natural, with impeccable flow and a healthy dose of venom."[50] For this reason, Steffanee Wang of Nylon and Precious Fondren of HipHopDX called "Smoking on My Ex Pack" a highlight of SOS—Fondren recommended that readers play it on repeat.[53][54] Some critics liked how the harsh rapping in "Smoking on My Ex Pack" juxtaposed the soft sound of the album tracks that come before it.[note 8] Slant Magazine writer Paul Attard argued that this provided the album's otherwise weak middle section some much-needed catharsis.[57]

Select music journalists gave the song distinctive accolades. For Vulture's Jason P. Frank and Okayplayer's Robyn Mowatt, "Smoking on My Ex Pack" was a highlight of her discography.[33][52] Asking SZA to make more lyrically similar songs, Frank argued: "in the context of her career, it's also a flex; her best is not her limit — it's the floor."[33] In Complex, Ecleen Luzmila Caraballo listed the song's rap verse as one of the best of 2022 and wrote that SZA's usage of wordplay further strengthened her lyrics.[49] Meanwhile, a few others argued the song's primary weakness was its length, feeling "Smoking on My Ex Pack" did not reach its full potential due to this.[33][49]