Lizzo: “I think seeing and hearing a Black woman make real music with radical joy triggers miserable people”

Lizzo has responded to critics of her music and addressed the broader treatment of Black women in pop music across social media platform X/Twitter.

The ‘Truth Hurts’ singer, who recently announced her new album ‘Love In Real Life’ and released singles including the title track and ‘Still Bad’, returned to the platform to address various criticisms of her work and its place in contemporary pop culture.

“Saying my brand of ‘poptimism’ doesn’t work in a ‘post-Covid world’ is a lazy take… as if I didn’t release ‘About Damn Time’ post pandemic,” Lizzo wrote. “As if I didn’t write ‘About Damn Time’ to be a post lockdown anthem to inspire us to get outside and together again… and was successful at it btw.”

The singer went on to discuss the broader context of Black women in music, stating: “I think seeing and hearing a Black woman make real music with radical joy triggers miserable people… but I follow in the footsteps of Janet, of Funkadelic, of Earth Wind and Fire… nobody’s doing it like me for Us. And I stand on that.”

Speaking about the album’s title, Lizzo explained: “I think that real life is the only place that love exists. I think that I have mistaken the gratification that you get from social media as love. Because there was a time where I wasn’t reaching out to the people who were closest to me or I was in isolation, in desolation, in certain times of my life. The internet was the only place I felt seen and appreciated.”

She added: “I think when it stops becoming that safe space and it becomes a very toxic, destructive place, your sense of self-worth gets destroyed as well. I had to discover in the past two years, one and a half years, that as good as it feels to be praised online and to be loved by people through a screen, the real love happens when you are in the real world connecting with people.”