Source: Mike Coppola / Getty
Lizzo is once again addressing critics who have accused her of making music for “white people.” The 34-year-old singer responded to the past comments in a recent appearance on The Howard Stern Show, according to The New York Post.
Lizzo began: “[It’s] very hurtful, only because I am a Black woman, and I feel like it really challenges my identity and who I am, and diminishes that, which I think is really hurtful,” the “Special” singer said. She said that her music is influenced by the feel-good songs of the ’70s and ’80s–calling her songs, “funky, soulful, feel-good music.”
“I feel like a lot of people, truthfully, don’t get me — which is why I wanted to do this documentary, because I was like, ‘I feel like y’all don’t understand me, y’all don’t know where I came from …’” she continued. “And now I don’t want to answer no more questions about this s–t. I want to show the world who I am.”
Lizzo, who was born in Detroit and relocated to Houston in her youth, told Vanity Fair in a cover story last month, she said that she was seen as different for the music she listened to.
“It was a Black school. Mostly Black and brown, Caribbean, I had Nigerian friends…They were all listening to what was on the radio: Usher, Destiny’s Child, Ludacris and I was into Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer.’”
“I kept it hidden, even when I was in a rock band, because I didn’t want to be made fun of by my peers — they’d yell, ‘White girl!’” she said.
She recalled that she was also picked on for how she dressed.
“I was wearing these flared bell-bottoms with embroidery down it — and they’d say, ‘You look like a white girl, why do you want to look like a hippie?’” Lizzo recounted. “I wanted to be accepted so bad; not fitting in really hurt.”
Despite the criticism, Lizzo is making her sound work for her with three Grammy Award wins and eight nominations. The singer will also close out the year as the final musical guest of 2022 on Saturday Night Live this Saturday (Dec. 17).