Lizzo Addresses Criticism She Makes Music For White People

Lizzo is addressing criticisms that she makes music that solely appeals to white people. She explained in her HBO documentary Love, Lizzo, that she often gets called out for genre-hopping. Now, she revealed that those views are "very hurtful."

Per The Independent, the "Truth Hurts" singer said, "[It’s] very hurtful, only because I am a Black woman, and I feel like it really challenges my identity and who I am, and diminishes that, which I think is really hurtful."

The 34-year-old Detroit native affirmed that her music is for “literally everybody and anybody." Lizzo added that she doesn't "try to gatekeep my message from people. So all three of those things for me, I’m just like, ‘You don’t even get me at all,'" she said. “And I feel like a lot of people, truthfully, don’t get me –- which is why I wanted to do this documentary, because I was like, ‘I feel like y’all don’t understand me, y’all don’t know where I came from…’ And now I don’t want to answer no more questions about this s---. I want to show the world who I am."

The Special star explained that she felt that her music in fact influenced heavily by Black music from the 70s and 80s. She defines her sound as “funky, soulful, feel-good music."

In her HBO doc, Lizzo said that she felt that the genre of pop music was “racist inherently." The news comes shortly after Lizzo revealed that she was bullied in school for liking rock bands. “It was a Black school,” she told Vanity Fair in October. “Mostly Black and brown, Caribbean, I had Nigerian friends... They were all listening to what was on the radio: Usher, Destiny’s Child, Ludacris, and I was into Radiohead’s OK Computer. I kept it hidden, even when I was in a rock band, because I didn’t want to be made fun of by my peers – they’d yell, ‘White girl!’”