If you were to describe the year Lizzo has had thus far, “energetic” might be an understatement.
LISTEN: Lizzo stops by to chat with Channel Q’s Ryan Mitchell
Lizzo joined Channel Q’s Ryan Mitchell for a lengthy conversation that kicked off with her surprise appearance alongside Harry Styles at Coachella this past weekend. She joined Styles on stage to perform the Gloria Gaynor classic “I Will Survive” and then stayed for a rousing rendition of the One Direction hit “What Makes You Beautiful.”
So how did it all come together? Well, sometimes you just need to ask. She got connected with Styles a few days ahead of his set and when he asked her to come to rehearsals, Lizzo said “it was really ‘are we doing this thing?!?’”
“He’s very poetic and I was like ‘hell yeah we’re doing it!’”
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2022 is going to be a special year for Lizzo as she’s gearing up to release her fourth studio album Special this July. She took her time reflecting on her own desires that helped lead her to this point.
“I feel like I'm just doing everything that I want to do and that’s the most important thing,” she said. “I don’t care if people like it, I don’t care if people hate it, I don’t care! I’m happy and I think that was my goal with having such a massive 2019/early 2020.”
Lizzo won numerous awards during that time period, which she says left her with a feeling of “now what?”
“I didn’t want to go into a people pleasing era where it’s like now everyone knows who I am and I’ve made them so happy… How do I keep them happy?” She said. “It [was] like, no how do you keep yourself happy?”
We’re not even halfway through the year yet, but Lizzo has a theme that’s well-suited to define it. “2022 was manifesting all my dreams and making all my dreams come true,” she exclaimed.
WATCH MORE: Lizzo plays 'It's About Damn Time' with Kevan Kenney
Mitchell went on to ask Lizzo what pressure she feels being a Black woman in Pop music as she opened up about her experience. “I’m fat so people just automatically hate me,” she said. “It’s an interesting thing, it’s like I have to win people over immediately because they’re already like ‘well she’s fat so I was taught not to like that.’ Then they’re like ‘wait I actually do kind of like this.’”
A lot of the comments she reads are from people who wound up liking “this Lizzy girl” as she then thinks, “well why did you want to hate me in the first place.”
Lizzo doesn’t let the pressure she faces carry over into her music. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. “I’m gonna make the music I wanna make and it’s gonna be good,” she said. “If you don’t like it, I don’t care. I got a full arena full of people who think otherwise.”
Ahead of her new album Special, Mitchell asked how the “About Damn Time” singer really knows that a project is done. Throughout her years as a musician, Lizzo has developed a process that informs her when she’s done with a record.
It involves sitting in the studio and listening back to the master recordings. From there, Lizzo puts the exact timestamp on when a track starts and ends. Funny enough, she didn’t get to do that on her wildly popular 2019 album Cuz I Love You. “I didn’t do the time thing and there’s some songs to this day that are going too fast into each other and I’m like ‘dammit I should have did that thing!’” She said.
For Special, she made sure she wasn’t going to miss that opportunity. After giving a keynote address at South By Southwest in Austin, Lizzo flew back to Los Angeles just to get to the studio and listen back to the album. “I’ve got to make sure these songs flow right,” she said.
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