50 | Rolling Stone | February 2020
“She said, ‘I’m pretty sure I know how to scienti-
fically make a hit,’ ” Eris says. “She has the brain
of a chemist. She knows the equation. Lizzo could
write a hit in her sleep.”
Lizzo’s pop ear made both her and her label
impatient for a hit. Her 2016 EP, Coconut Oil, was
buzzy but fell flat. “There was a sense of frustra-
tion at times because we knew how amazing she
was, and we saw the potential,” says Atlantic A&R
executive Brandon Davis, who signed Lizzo to
pop producer Rick Reed’s imprint, Nice Life, in
December 2015.
In 2017, she dropped “Truth Hurts.” Half-
rapped, half-sung, it was both a breakup kiss-off
and an empowerment anthem, balancing cheeky
humor, a touch of pain, and a whole lot of con-
fidence. “It was the first song that was like, ‘Oh,
this is a cool song,’ ” she continues. “Most of my
rap songs were so lyrical spherical, you know?
[On ‘Truth Hurts’] I’m doing that rap-singing
thing and the beat was lit. I was proud of it. I
could play it for my friends back home in Hous-
ton.” Not long after Lizzo wrote “Truth Hurts,”
she visited a psychic, who began quoting lines
from the song. “I was like, ‘What the hell?’ And
she was like, ‘You should just get married to your-
self.’ ” Lizzo does just that in the song’s video.
“Truth Hurts” was ingenious, catchy as hell,
and a total flop. When it seemed to disappear,
Lizzo wondered if she should too. She considered
quitting music altogether. Her team talked her out
of it. “Truth Hurts” would remain a centerpiece
of her live show, but she moved on, focusing her
attention on Cuz I Love You.
On October 20th, 2018, Lizzo posted a video
from a show in Iowa City, Iowa, on Instagram. It
was of her playing flute while covering Kendrick
Lamar’s “Big Shot.” Lizzo and her backup-danc-
ing Big Grrrls hit the shoot dance in the middle of
the song before she resumes her flute-playing. “I
think that was another reason why I was so satis-
fied,” she continues. “Because I was known as a
flute player now. Secret’s out: I am a band nerd.”
In less than 30 seconds, Lizzo had hit some-
thing in the often-confusing viral-content zeit-
geist, and her #FluteAndShootChallenge became
a phenomenon. She served up more viral con-
tent — 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 grow-
ing an audience.
Lizzo released Cuz I Love You in April 2019. Crit-
ics liked it, and it racked up good, if not outstand-
ing, streaming numbers. Then something strange
happened. Someone Great, a breakup dramedy
starring Gina Rodriguez and Lakeith Stanfield,
dropped on Netflix the same day as Cuz I Love
Yo u. The film happened to feature “Truth Hurts,”
soundtracking a memorable scene of Rodriguez’s
broken-hearted character day-drinking, dancing
and shouting along to the track in her underwear.
“It was always my intention for this moment to be
able to live outside the film as a stand-alone clip,”
says the film’s director and writer, Jennifer Kaytin
Robinson, who first heard Lizzo in 2016. She was
LIZZO