.lizzo has become a new kind of superstar: a plus-size black singer and rapper dominating pop, all while being relentlessly uplifting and openly sexual on her own terms. Read our new cover story
It’s been that kind of year — surreal, gratifying, kind of exhausting. Last night, Lizzo played the American Music Awards, donning a fluffy purple gown and belting the slow, aching ballad “Jerome” to a sea of swaying phone lights. “I was worried the whole time that I would forget the words,” Lizzo says. Singing “Jerome” is one of the few points in her live show when she’s not twerking, fluting, or running end-to-end onstage. Her thoughts tend to drift.
As a dark-skinned black woman doing the uncool thing of making uplifting pop music, insults tend to be harsh and personal. She’s been called corny and an “industry plant.” In a since-retracted headline, cheeky gossip site Bossip called her a “Kidz Bop Kween,” suggesting that her music is watered-down imitations of more authentic pop. The most consistent, painful insult, though, is that she makes music for white people, that she’s merely shuckin’ and jivin’ for an audience of-era white feminists.
She may be “fried ostrich pussy” for some listeners, but she’s not going anywhere — not after all it took to get here. “We eventually get used to everything,” she says. “So people just gon’ have to get used to my ass.”Gold headdress by Yana Markova. Jewelry by Lynn Ban. Crystal SnakeSkin Jewelry by J. Maskrey.Lizzo decided she didn’t need to make any resolutions for 2019: She had accomplished everything she wanted. She was recording songs she loved, and her shows were sold out.
In less than 30 seconds, Lizzo had hit something in the often-confusing viral-content zeitgeist, and her #FluteAndShootChallenge became a phenomenon. She served up more viral content — specifically, videos of her coolly saying “Hi bitch” and “Bye bitch” on golf carts, escalators, and other in-motion settings — and became her own meme-generating machine. She was growing an audience.Dress by Christian Siriano. Earrings by Lorraine Schwartz. Rings by Archive Lynn Ban.
She cried because she has never been able to say that about a person she saw performing onstage before, let alone a plus-size performer belting, rapping, and dancing instead of standing still with her body covered. In a world where we were told to believe that slightly curvier-than-average features on the slim figures of Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé, or Kim Kardashian are somehow extraordinary, it felt radical.
Soon after “My Skin,” Lizzo’s team reached out to Gregg for advice. The singer was beginning to change up her game from the flannel and Duck boots she swore by in Minnesota. Gregg helped Lizzo’s stylist find brands that catered to plus-size bodies, and later appeared in the video for “Scuse Me.” “I was thinking about how meaningful this moment in time is for plus-size women,” Gregg reflects. “Things are really changing.
She was “private” but still outgoing enough to audition friends for a Destiny’s Child-inspired girl group. The first song she wrote for the group was called “Broken Households” — about children, unlike herself, who grew up in broken homes. Lizzo still didn’t feel like she could sing, so she directed the other members to belt out the sad tune. Eventually, she formed Cornrow Clique, her first proper band. The lineup featured three friends who went by Nino, Lexo, and Zeo. Melissa became “Lisso.
Lizzo quit Ellypseas in 2010, a year after her dad died. She feared that giving up college and her dreams had let him down. “My dad was an advocate for my flute, and he wanted me to go back to college really badly,” she says. “He was going around trying to get money from my cousins to put me back in school. And I’m like, ‘I’m not going back to school.’ I didn’t tell him that though.”
For Lizzo, this kind of respect was life-changing. “I used to be so upset that I never had co-signs,” she toldin 2018. “I was like, ‘I’m too weird for the rappers and too black for the indies.’ I was just sitting in this league of my own. To be embraced by Prince and co-signed, I am eternally grateful for that.”in L.A., the high priestess of self-empowerment is playing a Jingle Ball concert at Dallas’ Dickies Arena.
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