Having recently been interviewed by Nardwuar and proclaimed her desire to move to Canada, noted Radiohead fan Lizzo has been fully embracing the Special state of mind — but she's never winning so much that she forgets the racial stigmas rooted in the pop game.
While promoting her new documentary Love, Lizzo in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the pop star discussed the racist origins of pop music and the consequent backlash she has received over her music not being "Black enough."
"Is that a stigma of pop music, because the genre can be so white-feeling that if you have a hit there, then people think you're catering to a specific demographic?" asked journalist Gerrad Hall.
"Absolutely," Lizzo said. "Well, genre's racist inherently. I think if people did any research they would see that there was race music and then there was pop music. 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."
She continued, "So then there were these genres created almost like code words: R&B, and then of course eventually hip-hop and rap was born from that. I think when you think about pop, you think about MTV in the '80s talking about 'We can't play rap music' or 'We can't put this person on our platform because we're thinking about what people in the middle of America think' — and we all know what that's code for."
Back in 2020, major labels and the Grammys followed Republic Records' move to ban the term "urban," which many believe is a thinly veiled marker of Blackness and functions to sideline Black artists. As Elias Leight pointed out in a piece for Rolling Stone, "To get rid of the 'urban' category while not wiping out 'pop' simultaneously amounts to a new frosting on the same old cake."
That cake is foundational to the music business, much like how the 1950s were rife with white artists covering Black artists' songs to introduce them to a "pop" (read: white) audience — a strategy that needed the Black and white music markets to be separated to be successful.
"So yes, because of that — fast-forward to 2022 — we have this well-oiled pop machine, but remember that it has a racist origin," Lizzo reminded. "And I think the coolest thing I've seen is rap and hip-hop artists become pop. Now pop music is really rap in its DNA — rap is running the game, and I think that's so cool. But we forget that in the late '80s and the early '90s, there were these massive pop diva records that were sang by Black women like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. And I'm giving that same energy."
Of her own sound, she added, "I'm giving that same energy with a little bit of rap, and I think that people just have to get used to me. I think anything that's new, people are going to criticize and feel like it's not for them. But once you know what it is — just like I've got a friend who don't like avocado but she likes guacamole; it don't make no sense — but once you get used to something, it might be for you.
"So for people who don't like pop music or don't like Black artists that make pop music, they may eventually like me. I might be guacamole to them," the pop star concluded. "You just gotta get used to me because I'm making good shit. You missing out," Lizzo laughed.
Earlier this year, the artist drew criticism for using an ableist slur in her song "Grrrls." She immediately took accountability and shared a new version that omitted the offensive lyric.
While promoting her new documentary Love, Lizzo in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the pop star discussed the racist origins of pop music and the consequent backlash she has received over her music not being "Black enough."
"Is that a stigma of pop music, because the genre can be so white-feeling that if you have a hit there, then people think you're catering to a specific demographic?" asked journalist Gerrad Hall.
"Absolutely," Lizzo said. "Well, genre's racist inherently. I think if people did any research they would see that there was race music and then there was pop music. 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."
She continued, "So then there were these genres created almost like code words: R&B, and then of course eventually hip-hop and rap was born from that. I think when you think about pop, you think about MTV in the '80s talking about 'We can't play rap music' or 'We can't put this person on our platform because we're thinking about what people in the middle of America think' — and we all know what that's code for."
Back in 2020, major labels and the Grammys followed Republic Records' move to ban the term "urban," which many believe is a thinly veiled marker of Blackness and functions to sideline Black artists. As Elias Leight pointed out in a piece for Rolling Stone, "To get rid of the 'urban' category while not wiping out 'pop' simultaneously amounts to a new frosting on the same old cake."
That cake is foundational to the music business, much like how the 1950s were rife with white artists covering Black artists' songs to introduce them to a "pop" (read: white) audience — a strategy that needed the Black and white music markets to be separated to be successful.
"So yes, because of that — fast-forward to 2022 — we have this well-oiled pop machine, but remember that it has a racist origin," Lizzo reminded. "And I think the coolest thing I've seen is rap and hip-hop artists become pop. Now pop music is really rap in its DNA — rap is running the game, and I think that's so cool. But we forget that in the late '80s and the early '90s, there were these massive pop diva records that were sang by Black women like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. And I'm giving that same energy."
Of her own sound, she added, "I'm giving that same energy with a little bit of rap, and I think that people just have to get used to me. I think anything that's new, people are going to criticize and feel like it's not for them. But once you know what it is — just like I've got a friend who don't like avocado but she likes guacamole; it don't make no sense — but once you get used to something, it might be for you.
"So for people who don't like pop music or don't like Black artists that make pop music, they may eventually like me. I might be guacamole to them," the pop star concluded. "You just gotta get used to me because I'm making good shit. You missing out," Lizzo laughed.
Earlier this year, the artist drew criticism for using an ableist slur in her song "Grrrls." She immediately took accountability and shared a new version that omitted the offensive lyric.