104 time December 23–30, 2019
And I want to know everything: Can she still
run to the store in her pajamas to buy grocer-
ies? (No, but she’s always had them delivered,
even pre-fame.) Can she walk through an air-
port without a dozen giddy wine moms throw-
ing themselves in her path while shouting her
lyrics at her? (She travels with security now.
People can be weird.) Also: How do you ask
someone, Why them, or Why now, without
making them want to punch you?
But I have to ask: Why was this the year—
after nearly a decade on the road, performing
shows for next to nothing, living in your car,
being your own hype man—that you racked up
more Grammy nominations than any other art-
ist? “I’ve been doing positive music for a long-
ass time,” she says. “Then the culture changed.
There were a lot of things that weren’t popular
but existed, like body positivity, which at first
was a form of protest for fat bodies and black
women and has now become a trendy, com-
mercialized thing. Now I’ve seen it reach the
mainstream. Suddenly I’m mainstream!” She
laughs. “How could we have guessed some-
thing like this would happen when we’ve never
seen anything like this before?”
She’s right. Lizzo does represent some-
thing new. Her sound is relentlessly positive
and impossibly catchy: bangers that synthe-
size pop, rap and R&B, with hooks so sharp it
feels like they’ve been in your brain forever.
Her lyrics are funny, bawdy and vulnerable:
reminders to dump whatever idiot is holding
you back and become your own biggest fan.
(Even the viral four-second clip of her in a
rainbow dress saying, “Bye, bitch!” and cack-
ling as she rides away on the back of a cart is
superior to many artists’ entire musical out-
put this year.) Attending a Lizzo concert feels
like worshipping at the church of self-love, if
your preacher was a pop star living joyfully in
a big black body, delivering a sermon of self-
acceptance that’s as frank as it is accessible. At
a time when Instagrammers are shilling flat-
tummy tea or pretending to eat a giant cheese-
burger, Lizzo sells something more radical:
the idea that you are already enough.
That is particularly appealing this year, with
the Internet a scary toilet, measles somehow
making a comeback, and everyone just meme-
ing themselves through it because no one can
afford to go to therapy. In 2019, Lizzo was a
beam of light shining through doom and gloom,
telling us to love ourselves even if the world
doesn’t always love us back. We needed her.
“Who is that glamorous fat bitch?” It was sum-
mer 2014, and my homegirl and I were squinting
at the shattered screen of a busted iPhone in an
empty grocery-store parking lot like two los-
ers. She’d pulled up one of Lizzo’s music vid-
eos, knowing that keeping up with new music
is hard when you’re not a Cool Teen. We tried
to block the glare from the lunch-break o’clock
sun as we watched this babe with bejeweled
nails dancing with a shirtless dude in the des-
ert while rapping. “Minuscule to me, I’m a big
deal to you; I picketh thee off, like a bug betwixt
my shoe.” I paused the video, my jaw against
my chest. “Did she just say betwixt?” I’m in!
In 1989, when I was young and outcast and
looking for even a shred of representation to
make me feel less weird and alone, my options
for fat-black-lady role models were Nell Carter,
Marsha Warfield, and Shirley Hemphill from
What’s Happening!! Imagine the kind of adults
who are going to grow out of kids with access
to Lizzo. Now that she’s a megastar, everything
she does is news—especially her tendency to
post nude photos, which she does frequently
and with great enthusiasm. “I think it’s healthy
to have a relationship with your naked body,
even if no one ever sees it,” she says. “But I’ve
always felt the need to share it.”
Seeing her body as I’m casually scrolling
through Instagram is like a shot of emotional
adrenaline. Open my largest vein and pump
that photo of her naked in a bathtub filled with
Skittles directly into it. It feels revolutionary,
even now, to watch a fat woman love herself
so openly. We’ve been conditioned to expect
the “good fatty”—the “Excuse me, I’m so sorry,
look at me eating a salad!” kind of fat girl who
feels like she has to perform some sort of dis-
ordered eating to get love, let alone fame. Lizzo
loves her back rolls and doesn’t care whether
you do too. (Though you should!)
While it may feel like Lizzo is suddenly
everywhere, she’s actually been grinding for
over a decade. Born Melissa Jefferson in De-
troit, she’s a classically trained flutist (instead
of becoming a quiet first chair of the Minne-
apolis orchestra, she plays the flute onstage in
a bodysuit while hitting the shoot) and rap-
per (plus singer!). Growing up, she says, she
was always called “different.” “And different
was not a compliment back then.” (Lizzo is
a combination of an early nickname, Lissa,
and Jay-Z’s song “Izzo.”) As a young artist
in Houston, where she moved when she was
10, she recorded and performed constantly—
Lizzo was in an electro soul duo called Lizzo
& the Larva Ink and then an all-female rap
group, the Chalice, which appeared on a 2014
Prince song. Her road here has been long.
Lizzo has toured as a solo artist since 2013GOOD AS HELL
Lizzo performs
with her dancers in
London on Nov. 6(^2019) ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR