Lizzo, the rapper who celebrates women
The body-positive rapper writes lyrics that celebrate women and crush stereotypes
IT CAN only be described as a sermon on self-love – and she delivered it in spectacular fashion. Strutting her stuff in a canary yellow costume, she proudly put her thick things and cellulite on display. Although Lizzo’s star has been on a steady rise, her performance at the recent MTV Video Music Awards catapulted her into the global spotlight. Her electrifying performance, which critics agree is hands down one of the best in VMA history, won her famous fans including rapper Queen Latifah, singer Rihanna and US politician Hillary Clinton.
“I cried like a baby watching Lizzo and all those beautiful black girls whose bodies look like mine on stage tonight,” actress Amber Riley tweeted.
Lizzo, a best new artist nominee, didn’t go home with a VMA but she was the biggest winner of the night on social media.
“We really need more female artists who help everyone achieve genuine self-love, especially people whose bodies are not loved by society’s standards,” a fan wrote on Twitter. “We need more love for fat bodies, for black and brown bodies, for disabled bodies, for bodies with cellulite, for bodies with stretchmarks, for bodies with moles, for bodies with scars, for any type of body that needs love.”
Her message of self-love has won her a new group of fans. But she was already blowing up the charts with Truth Hurts, a girl-power anthem about how being single isn’t such a bad thing.
This smash hit dethroned Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road after the song spent a record-setting 20 weeks at the top of Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop music chart.
But her rise to superstardom hasn’t been sudden – nor easy.
LIZZO (31) has her roots in rap, gospel and classical music. She was born Melissa Jefferson and grew up in a musical family who listened to a wide range of genres. “My sister was into indie, like Björk or Radiohead,” she recalls. “Dad liked classic rock: Elton John or Queen. We also listened to a lot of gospel.”
Her father, a priest in the Pentecostal church in Detroit, Michigan, moved the family to Houston, Texas, when she was nine.
Here she picked up a flute for the first time and joined her school’s marching band. At 14 she formed a rap group, shortening her name to Lizzo in honour of Jay-Z’s hit song Izzo. But the talented teen silently battled body issues. “I think, unfortunately – because of mainstream media – a lot of women, specifically black women, grow up questioning their beauty. “For a long time I thought there were things about myself I would change, and I wished that I was someone else.” She often felt she just didn’t fit in. “I liked anime [ Japanese animation] and comics, which just didn’t work in Houston, where everyone who’s black listens to rap. I was teased like a dog for wanting to be intelligent, for reading, for talking the way I do. “But I didn’t dumb myself down just to be accepted. I was listening to Radiohead and classical music. I never stopped doing what I loved.” In 2011 she moved to Minneapolis where she made inroads into the music industry, singing with groups because she was too shy to stand in the spotlight alone. “I believed in myself in rock bands, R&B groups and rap duos. But I never believed in myself as a solo artist. I didn’t think anyone wanted to look at me or hear what I had to say.” Today the breakout star has more than four million followers on Instagram and 821 000 on Twitter, 905 000 subscribers on YouTube and more than 22 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Even her trusty musical instrument, Sasha Flute, has its own Insta account.
Yet just a few years ago Lizzo was ready to throw in the towel. She was heartbroken and homeless, and she fell into a deep depression.
“I was 21 when I had the worst year of my life,” she says.
“My father passed away, I was homeless, I didn’t have any money, my band was doing really badly and I was by myself.
“I thought to myself, ‘I have no reason to do this anymore’ because I was doing it for him. But that’s when I realised I have to do this for myself.”
SHE got through those dark days with treatment. “I know there’s a stigma in the black community around going to therapy, especially for black women. “We’re so strong because of all that we’ve been put through, and how little we’re sought after and looked out for. So black women end up saying, ‘I got it. I don’t need help. I’m handling this.’
“But I finally realised owning up to your vulnerabilities is a form of strength and making the choice to go to therapy is a form of strength.” It’s taken Lizzo a while to get comfortable in her skin. These days she’s not shy to pepper her social media feeds with sultry snaps.
“You’re not going to wake up and be bigger or smaller or lighter or darker,” she says. “Your hair’s not going to suddenly grow past your knees. And you have to be okay with that.”
She’s also using music as an outlet and in doing so is becoming a cheerleader for body positivity.
“I was born like this, don’t even gotta try,” she sings in the upbeat Juice. “I’m like chardonnay, get better over time. Heard you say I’m not the baddest bitch. You lied.”
Her music, she said, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. “I’m not writing these songs to remind myself one day that I’m that bitch. I want to be that bitch – and singing them everyday helps me manifest that.”
Until recently, Lizzo was known more for her tongue-twisting rhymes but she’s showing a different side to herself on the ballad Cuz I Love You, from her album of the same name.
“I’m afraid of my voice. I’m afraid of people thinking I’m just one thing,” she told Rolling Stone magazine. “I had to lose that fear because the more people get to know me, the more they’ll realise I have many, many, many levels to me.”
Lizzo is all about blowing stereotypes out of the water.
As she puts it, “F**k boxes. I’m too big to be put in one anyway.”
‘You’re not going to wake up and be bigger or smaller or lighter or darker’