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!’”

In 2022, TikTok gave us viral sensations Tariq, aka the "It’s corn!" kid, and learning choreography to dances like Lizzo's "About Damn Time." In fact, so many people loved dancing to Lizzo's song that she became the number one most-viewed artist of 2022.

According to TikTok's Year on TikTok: 2022, the singer with 26 million followers has the most total video views on the platform. "About Damn Time" was the app’s number four top-trending song, and Lizzo’s TikTok video in which she demonstrates the dance for the hit song came in at seventh place on the trending-videos ranking, according to the company.

The number one trending song in the U.S. was “Sunroof” by Nicky Youre and Dazy, with TikTok users making some 8.9 million videos featuring the track. The number one most trending U.S. video was a construction of an 8.3-foot-tall chocolate giraffe. The most popular tutorial video was a woman teaching her daughter to get her deaf dad's attention. Drew Barrymore and Lupita Nyong’o were among the top 10 U.S. “breakthrough” creators on TikTok, registering among the creators with the biggest growth on the platform for the year. "Jiggle Jiggle" was the number one trending sound on the platform, the rap created more than two decades ago by documentary filmmaker Louis Theroux. The audio gained a new life after it was remixed by DJ duo Duke & Jones and became a popular dance on TikTok.

Take a look at the TikTok artists with the most video views throughout 2022 below: