SZA gives a Denver musician her stamp of approval

Eman El Saied, the indie musician who performs as sunstoney, was just waking up when she got a surprising text from her friend: “SZA just reposted your fucking video.”

“I run to my phone, and I’m checking my mentions, and there it is,” she says. “Within one day of her sharing it to her, you know, 23 million followers on Instagram, I gained 600 new followers. I’m at 700K views because of her. … I was getting so many amazing comments from people being like, ‘SZA sent me here.'”

The video, directed by Ana Paula Pinto, was made to promote El Saied’s latest song, “WAITING TO BLOOM,” an absolutely addictive and dazzling dance single teasing her upcoming album, which will drop later this summer. The video shows El Saied, who also contributes writing and photography to Westword, donning a SZA-esque wig decorated with butterflies, dancing and singing in a room draped in tapestries and flowers at Squirm Gallery.

“It was scary for me to even drop this music, because it’s nothing like my previous work,” she notes, referring to her last album, “The Mirror Is Calling,” which was released in 2024.

But thank goodness she did release it: This song, mixed by Yugs, is one of her best releases yet. Following an opening with the trills of a sax, courtesy of Bridget Hartman (of Barbara, Pink Lady Monster, Packaging), sunstoney’s polished vocals and soothing croons are almost otherworldly yet comforting, interlacing with a summery beat and bassline from Dan Timmers (of Moonlight Bloom) that moves you. The lyrics, as well, provide a familiarity as though you were being sung to by a best friend: “You’re just a flower waiting to bloom / Tell me what you mean / I know you feel the weight on your shoulders / You don’t need to look no further / Baby, I got you.“

“‘The Mirror Is Calling’ was huge for me because it was me stepping into more commercial indie-rock pop,” she says, “and then after the release of that project, I was playing a bunch of shows … and realized I wanted to see people dancing more. … I was like, ‘What if we up the BPM? What if we make more dance music, study UK garage and house, and see what my attempt at making dance music would sound like?’ So it was huge to see it even progress like that.”

And having SZA repost the song provided significant validation that she’s moving in the right direction. “When a big artist, a Grammy-award winning artist at that, is silently promoting you is like, ‘Damn, I am doing this correctly,'” she says. “It’s very validating to me, especially [from] another woman of color in the space.”

She also learned that SZA was raised Muslim and Christian, “and that’s basically how I grew up,” she says. “I was doing Ramadan and Christmas. She comes from a multifaith household. … Such a weird parallel.”

She explains that she diverted from her usual release strategy, this time opting for ads on Instagram, something she’d never done before. It paid off, because who knows if SZA would’ve seen it through the algorithm otherwise?

“It’s just interesting to see what a cosign does for you,” El Saied says. “There’s this other artist named Eli, a trans pop star, and they popped off because Doechi commented on their TikTok once, and then they got signed.”

In the meantime, El Saied is busy prepping for some shows she has slated this summer. First up, she’ll be playing a free show at Levitt Pavilion on Saturday, July 18, alongside May Be Fern for Girls Rock Denver, and then she’ll have a performance at Blucifer’s First Rodeo, which will make its debut on Broadway from July 23-26.

As some commenters are putting it: It’s sunstony SZN.

RSVP to sunstoney at Levitt Pavilion, 1380 West Florida Avenue, 6 p.m. Saturday, July 18, at levittdenver.org.