Rap artist Lizzo has responded to critics who accused her of targeting white fans with her music.
The topic came up during her recently released HBO Max documentary, “Love, Lizzo,” and she addressed critics during a recent interview.
“[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,” Lizzo said during an appearance on “The Howard Stern Show.”
“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***. I want to show the world who I am.”
Lizzo describes her songs as “funky, soulful, feel-good music” inspired by many genres, including 70s and 80s artists.
This isn’t the first time the “Truth Hurts” singer addressed race as it relates to her music.
“I think if people did any research they would see that there was race music and then there was pop music,” she told Entertainment Weekly in November.
“And race music was their way of segregating black artists from being mainstream, because they didn’t want their kids listening to music created by black and brown people because they said it was demonic and yada, yada, yada.”
Lizzo said while all her friends in school listened to rap music, she was mocked for being more into bands like Radiohead.
The 34-year-old Grammy winner, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, previously spoke with Vanity Fair about her thoughts on race, politics, and twerking.
“When it’s sexual, it’s mine,” Lizzo said. “When it’s sexualized, someone is doing it to me or taking it from me. Black women are hypersexualized all the time, and masculinized simultaneously.”
“Because of the structure of racism, if you’re thinner and lighter, or your features are narrow, you’re closer to being a woman,” she went on, as The Daily Wire previously reported.
As for the popular dance style, Lizzo claimed twerking was a “black woman thing” that’s “printed in our DNA.”
“It disappeared and resurfaced in the 1920s, then disappeared and resurfaced in the 1980s. It’s an almost inexplicable phenomenon,” the “Good As Hell” composer said.