Lizzo continuing to pave her own lane

Detroit-born rapper Melissa Viviane Jefferson is better known globally as Lizzo. With her music career being born in 2011 while living in Minneapolis, Jefferson was performing with Larva Ink, a soul-pop duo, and helped form a female rap group The Chalice. Going on to be a part of Grrrl Prty, a five-female hip-hop group, however, this band split up in 2016 after the release of two EPs and a final show at Rock the Garden - A summer music festival in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Lizzo went on to release a very hip-hop-focused debut album, titled Lizzobangers, in 2013. Several music videos have been released for the album, including tracks ‘Bus passes and Happy Meals’, ‘Paris’, and ‘Batches & Cookies’ which featured on the ‘Best Videos of 2013’ list. This led to a US and UK tour in the autumn of 2013, opening for Har Mar Superstar - another American artist. Performing with his band and of course sang a few of her songs. As of 2016, Lizzo signed with Atlantic Records and was one of the hosts on MTV’s ‘Wonderland’, releasing an EP ‘Coconut Oil’ of which we first saw ‘Good as Hell’ as it was a part of the ‘Barbershop: The Next Cut’ soundtrack as she co-wrote each song on the album.

Since a young age, Lizzo has struggled with body issues, leading her to become an advocate for body positivity and self-love as she started to receive mainstream attention. When performing, Lizzo has the ‘Big Grrrls’ a group of backup dancers performing behind her as they consist of all plus-size dancers.

Jefferson’s mainstream breakthrough started in 2019 as she started the year with the release of her third studio album ‘Cuz I Love You', by Atlantic Records, following her first single ‘Juice’, After the release of the album in April 2019, she went on to perform at the Coachella Music Festival, an American music festival held in the Colorado Desert. She had a few sound problems as the track was jumping back and forth, throwing off the fans and the dancers as she just told them to “cut it off”, however, the crowd understood the assignment as they helped with the singing. She then said “If they ain’t gonna get the music right, I'm gonna get the music right” as she was given her flute on stage, going straight into a flute solo that blew the audience away.

The release of her album debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number four, three months after the release date. Her single ‘Truth Hurts’ became her first number-one hit as she became the third female rapper to top the charts without a featured artist, also becoming the first black solo female R&B singer to come on top of the list since Rihanna’s 2012 hit ‘Diamonds’.

In 2020, Lizzo signed a production deal with Amazon Studios, being able to develop projects, her first being a reality competition series called ‘Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls’, premiering in March of 2022. In that same month, she announced the release of the hit track ‘About Damn Time’ to be dropping in April 2022 as well as revealing her fourth album title ‘Special’ to have dropped on July 15th. Lizzo hit headlines online as she released her single ‘Grrrls’ as she had a lyric with the word ‘spaz’ which was quickly changed as she took to social media and claimed “as a fat black woman from America, I’ve had any hurtful words used against me so I understand the power words can have (whether intentionally or in my case, unintentionally)”. The singer had gone and collected yet another number-one track with ‘About Damn Time’ as it was number one in the Billboard charts for two weeks, also winning the coveted ‘Record of the Year at the 2022 Grammy Awards.

‘The Special Tour’ started last September and doesn’t finish until the end of July 2023, having done a few UK dates in places like London, Birmingham, Manchester, and Glasgow. Having grown a huge love for the UK, Lizzo had said to the crowd at her London show “London, will you be my bestie tonight?”. NME had said that she does know how to put on a show as she showed a psychiatrist’s couch during a therapy segment of the show, with a lot of on-screen graphics. Lizzo is also set to play at this year's Glastonbury Festival 2023, alongside Aitch, Arctic Monkeys, Lewis Capaldi, Slowthai, and Christine and the Queens.

We love Lizzo and the message she puts across in all of her tracks, let us know down below which Lizzo track is your favourite.