Glastonbury 2024: Watch SZA perform Kendrick Lamar collaboration ‘All The Stars’ to small crowd
During her headline set at Glastonbury Festival, SZA performed the hit Kendrick Lamar collaboration, ‘All The Stars’ to a surprisingly sparse crowd on the Pyramid Stage despite being one of the most streamed artists on the planet.
Featuring Lamar and SZA on vocals, and written alongside Anthony ‘Top Dawg’ Tiffith, Sounwave and Al Shux, the song was released in early January 2018. It is famous for being the lead single from the soundtrack album to that year’s iconic MCU instalment, Black Panther, which stars the late Chadwick Boseman.
While SZA played an array of tracks from across her immensely successful career, the 2018 anthem stood out among the finest she regaled her large audience with. With the arresting beat and atmospheric digital textures immediately grabbing attention, it didn’t take long for SZA’s powerful vocals to pierce the mix, and have the audience passionately singing in unison with her.
A truly arresting moment in a Glastonbury edition that has produced many of them, SZA resoundingly asserted why she is one of the world’s biggest stars and has earned every right to headline the Worthy Farm celebration. Alongside her vocals, the stage production was immense, which augmented the quality of this track and the others from her oeuvre that the St. Louis artist selected for this significant career moment.
Despite ‘All the Stars’ being a classic, it was not without its share of controversy. After the video was released, the British-Liberian artist, Lina Iris Viktor claimed that 19 seconds of the video, which sees Lamar in a room featuring geometric gold artwork and women, contains copyright violations due to perceived resemblances to her 24-karat gold-patterned artwork from her Constellations paintings series.
In a discussion with The New York Times, her lawyer, Christopher Robinson, claimed that representatives of Marvel approached the artist twice to ask if Lamar could use her work for the ‘All The Stars’ video, but she rejected them on both occasions.
“Why would they do this?” she told the publication. “It’s an ethical issue, because what the whole film purports is that it’s about black empowerment, African excellence – that’s the whole concept of the story. And at the same time they’re stealing from African artists.”
At a Glastonbury 2024 brimming with musical excellence, SZA’s performance was supposed to be the cherry on the cake for an edition featuring headliners Dua Lipa and Coldplay, as well as pioneers such as Kim Gordon, Asha Puthli, and Squeeze, however, the crowd was among the smallest in recent memory. Elsewhere, the likes of The Last Dinner Party, Mannequin Pussy and Fontaines D.C. appeared.
A highlight of this year’s edition emerged on Friday afternoon when Paul Heaton brought out Norman Cook – better known as producer Fatboy Slim – to perform their old band The Housemartins’ classic, ‘Happy Hour’. Rolling back the years, the ‘Weapon of Choice’ icon helmed the bass duties for the track.
Watch SZA perform ‘All the Stars’ at Glastonbury Festival below.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.