Page 7 - Pop History: Lizzo

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Jackie, Natalie and Holden explore the hard work and dedication behind Lizzo's rise to stardom   Want to see our thicc sweaty bodies in person? Lucky you, we're going on tour this winter! LA, Chicago, Pontiac & Milwaukee come see Page 7 and Wizard and the Bruiser Live!    We've got even more hot goss, cuz we love you. Our Patreon supporters get weekly bonus content and extra goodies! Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, it's me, your Willie Wizard, Jake. And it's your bristling bruiser, Holden, McNally, and we are so excited to announce page 7 and Wizard and the Bruiser live in Los Angeles, California. Wednesday, December 11th, 2019 at the Regent Theater. Tickets are only $22. And where can they get them, Jake? Type in your little web bar.

Go to lastpodcastnetwork.com slash P7 Live. That's lastpodcastnetwork.com slash P7 live. We'll see you there, folks. Or else I'll cry. Yeah, he'll cry. Slow songs, they're for skinny hoes. Can't move all this, you know, one of those. I'm a thick, bitch.

I need tempo. Oh, bump it up to the tempo. Man, have I? I've never heard a song that I was just like, yeah, I'm feeling myself. Like, I can't listen to Lizzo without grabbing on myself. Welcome to page seven's pop history. We are talking Lizzo today.

My name is Jackie Zabrowski, and I stand Lizzo. what's what the kids say. I am Holda McNeely. I remember the day that you turned me on to Lizzo and how unbelievable how much of a ride it's been since Good As Hell on coconut oil up to this massive hit album, up to this all of her just huge popularity that is just going on right now. I never, when you first introduced me here, I never would have thought she would have become just this all-powerful pop star that she is now. And Natalie? I am Natalie and Jackie tried to get me to listen to Lizzo for about two years before I actually did. And not because I was against her.

I was just always like, all right, cool. That sounds nice. And then I would forget immediately because Jackie was pushing like, you got to check out this girl's Instagram. She's fucking awesome. She plays the fluid and she twerks. And I'm like, oh, that sounds cool. And then my mind would just drift off into some other stupid thing. That was probably not as cool as Lizzo.

I'm just glad that I feel like I've got Even Henry listens to Lizzo Everyone I know listens to Lizzo Whether Lizzo is their kind of thing or not There's something about her that is so Truly mesmerizing That you just you can't look away Her social media presence

Her backup dancers The way just like the way that she creates her vision In her music videos and on stage She's onward She's remarkable Yeah you remind me of actually when she first like you first got me into her and then there was like some Yahoo

live stream of one of her concerts and my jaw hit the table while I was watching it. I was just like this she is like yes the plus size backup dancers killing it. Which are referred to as the big girls big girls killing it the slamming of the tequila bottle and then that wasn't like the

height I mean still is the height of our jacconese tequila slams I was just like I this girl gets it she gets it. I mean full ass grown ass. woman is what I mean by girl yeah it's so it's like you've got the live show you've got the flute you've got and then you and then last night I like I was almost like fucking got emotional watching her tiny desk concert again which is just unbelievable oh my god Natalie have you watched the

tiny desk concert no holy shit dude it is just it is bare bones and it is beautiful she goes hard in the paint for this for this tiny desk she definitely went in there being like I'm gonna do the best one and she kind of does the best tiny desk concert I've ever seen I also, I think another part that is a big reason of why I have fallen in love with Lizzo over the years is the fact that she's very open about struggling with her mental illness. And that is just something that if you guys have listened to Sex and the Human Activities, I have talked about it for a very long time of presenting yourself as a confident, strong, big woman, but also recognizing the fact that the reason why I am so confident and why I can put so much out there is because I'm a manic depressive and I've got highs in love. And there are just some days where it's like, oh, you haven't posted on social media for a long time. It's because I don't want anyone to look at me. I don't want anyone to look at my pictures.

I don't feel good. I don't like myself. And that is something that Lizzo goes above and beyond in she's trying to break the mold of we can talk about these things now. You can be both a very confident person and also just have very dark days, weeks, hours. And I'll say, bitch, I'm crazy. Yes. And own it. and absolutely own it.

I couldn't say it better myself. You got to. Half of the struggle of mental illness is the stigma and being ashamed of it. So if you can just embrace whatever fucked up things in your head because pretty much we all are and I don't actually trust anybody

who's not a little bit crazy. They're just like, no, I've never, you know, I've actually, I've been in partnerships with people. They're like, I just don't, when you talk about mental illness, I don't understand. I think that that's also a part of it too.

You've just never, not that there's anything wrong with you if you are, if you don't have highs and lows and a lot of issues. I don't trust you. Hell yeah, Natalie. Loud and proud. I definitely think that we are in a really cool age. And one of the things I really like, you know, that people love to talk shit about millennials and yada, yada, yada, and how silly things have gotten and things have definitely gotten silly. But I think with people like Lizzo and even like Billy Eilish and the really popular, like, and really Gaga really kind of paved the way for this, like the, the week. Weird is now acceptable and even cool.

Or JVN. Yeah. But it started back in the David Bowie era as well where it's like that is when it started to blossom. But it was still the minority of people now. It's to a point that everyone is like we are so on our way towards accepting, especially when it comes to mental illness, which even just when we were kids it wasn't accepted the way it was.

People still would say like, I go to a therapist. Yeah, and my parents are still weird about that. Also, you know, when it was stigmatized, it was almost stigmatized even in the therapy community where you would just kind of get thrown on a medication. And, I mean, that still happens sometimes a little bit too much. But not that I'm on medication. Sure. But now there's a lot more openness about talking about specific problems. You're not just deemed a crazy person and like drugged up.

where it's like, no, there's a lot of methods that you can work with and treat. And lots of different medications you can try as well. Yeah, medications, therapies, all kinds of, you know, new age bullshit, like meditation and all that. But together, you can not just, like, exist with mental illness. You can thrive within it and still have your moments and be happy anyway. Hell yeah. Abs of fucking lootly. Well, let's get into it.

Let's start from the very beginning and talk about Melissa Vivian. Jefferson. Hell yeah. Because that's Lizza's actual name, born in Detroit, Michigan, but she moved with her family to Houston, Texas at just 10 years old.

And Houston is really going to be her bedrock for where she first got her rapper chops. I really sound so white saying that. Oh, man, you are the whitest. When she became a rapist and also, you know, singing

very inspired by gospel music growing up, which you definitely get a lot of, if you listen to that tiny desk concert or watch it, she's very, amen, she's very, she really goes for that. And I think that that's also a lot of the, that pure joy in her music, I think comes from that positive aspect of gospel church music. I remember growing up Unitarian, there was one year where we would show up to church, we'd hop into a van, and they'd take us to a different church's service. And one of those times was my favorite time, and we went to a predominantly black church and the feeling in the air in that space, getting to be a part of that just pure joyousness

in singing and dancing was incredibly impactful to me. And I think very impactful to her growing up in terms of what she would later discover as her main basic vibe, which is this just pure light and positivity. And the hats. And the hats for days. And I just that was also growing a beautitarian. And that was also my favorite part was being able to go to Baptist church. Right. I'm just like, why don't we just do this? This is great. Yeah, I have, I have no positive experience from any sort of church.

The only times I would go, it was just, it was like the life was just being sucked out of the room. And I'm like, this is God. We went to those services as well, Natalie. And it was very shocking to see the difference about the way that people approach any sort of worship. of God or anything like that. And I did definitely discover positive aspects, but I feel like which one, which one are you describing?

Which one did you go to? Me? I'm gonna guess Protestant. Yeah, Protestant? I couldn't fucking tell you. I only really went to church with friends. Like my friend's father was a reverend. Okay.

And he was a piece, he was a monster. Yeah, that's good. He did all kinds of terrible things. So I got, you know, I got that. A bad stigma. And honestly, I remember. distinctly one church service. I feel like I'm not making this up where literally people just

got up and would just start crying and like talking about how sad their lives are. And it was like, I just couldn't have been polar opposite from. I mean, I do that in just my everyday life. You know, I don't need I don't get in a chapel for that. It was just like a hangout with Jackie. So going back to Lizzo,

she started out as a teenager predominantly rapping and formed a group called the Corn Roe-Click with friends of hers. This is also around the same time, too, that she was, so when she first started freestyle rapping, she would call into local Houston radio stations because apparently they had a lot of freestyle competitions

that were through the radio stations. So she would just call in and just like compete over the phone on the radio just to like show off her abilities and really hone what she was doing. And by the way, we're talking like 14 years old. Insane. Super duper young. She actually got her name.

I was super curious about this. So her name's Melissa. So it's like Lissa, but with a twist on that inspired by Jay-Z's very well-known track, Izzo Hova. So, age to the iso. Yeah, yeah. She got, yeah, and that's where she got Lizzo. She said, growing up in Houston, freestyle rapping was very first nature to me. That was what I wanted to do.

That's what you had to do as a rite of passage. It was very nerdy. And the fact that I knew how to freestyle on a bus or freestyle in the cafeteria and bang on the desk, just gave me a little get out of being a nerd free pass. Houston, that's the city that Freestyle really found its swag. And I'm just lucky that I was a part of that while it was happening. And also a classically trained flute player. I think it's just weird to everybody else, but it's not weird to me.

So her parents were not like stage parents. They weren't kind of pushing her towards this. No, I think that she seemed that she was very close to her father, but it had nothing to do. They never, I think that they supported what she was doing, but they never. pushed her into doing any of it. She created all of her own paths. Did she find her way to flute by herself? Yes.

I think so. And this is the, I was about to say this too. She really thought she was going to be like a professional floutist in an orchestra. She said, I saw a life of Concert Black and Boston Pops and traveling the world. When that didn't pan out for me, I was very depressed. So she ended up going to University of Houston with a focus on flute. And she calls her flute Sasha flute, which is a spin on Beyonce's Sasha Fierce Alter Ego. I love it.

I love it. And it is insane, though. I will say in the same way that I always kind of half wondered what my life would be like if Henry and I learned how to play the accordion the way my parents play the accordion, because she makes the flute sexy as fun. Yeah, and badass. Dude. That was actually what I wanted to play now.

Did you guys, when you were younger, did your schools make you learn an instrument? Yes, I did trumpet. I wanted to play flute because all the pretty girls got to play flute. But when I got in there, I asked to get the prombone. The lady was like, you're more of a clarinet girl. But I mean, it's cool now. But as a little girl, I was like, oh, man, I'm a dump. No, you're not a dump.

I was. I feel like the flute was just watching people struggle to me. make a single noise come out of it. So I was always like, I'm not fucking without one. That seems like so difficult and tricky to even just make a sound with it. But yeah, she was, you know, she, her ability, and Molly really talked about this in page seven. But if you, again, not to harp too much on the tiny desk concert, Molly talked about watching

that and being so impressed. And I am shocked and impressed every time she does it. She will be singing her fucking guts out. And then she will, without even taking a beat, lift that flute up and just pop right into a Lute solo and that kind of breath control is fucking crazy. That's some diaphragm right there. She got big old diaphragm. Big old, big old die die.

Speaking of crazy and horrible and tragic, her father dies at the age of 20 and she ends up living out of a car that year while trying to break into the music industry. She called this, it was the worst year of my life. I was emotional. I was lonely. I was grieving. Music was all I could do to just focus on picking up the fucking pieces.

Mm-hmm. Oh. Just absolutely brutal. I mean, if you can imagine, it just sounded just so, and by the way, I mean, we're talking about, and I think people should need to hear this more often because I know it took me a decade or so to even get to where I am now. This is years of struggle before everything happened within like two years for her, kind of, like when she exploded. Especially the past two years. Yeah, the past two years.

But she has been working. Right. hard her entire life. Grinding. On the surface, it can seem like she just blew on the wind and just like, I appear. But of course that's not the case. No.

It takes your entire life. And people need to like hear that more often because of course you always hear about the story of like the 18 year old kid, you know, whatever. But I feel like there's so many more of these, especially now, because I do feel like people are more career focused for longer

than generations past. And, you know, sometimes it just takes time and trying all of it. So what she does is she moves to Minneapolis at the age of 23, and she starts just performing around town with indie groups. And by the way, Minneapolis, and we're going to talk about Prince in a little bit, but Minneapolis, really

cool music town that people don't necessarily think of first when they think of music towns. And that's actually why she moved theirs, because she started to work with producer Johnny Lewis, who's from Minneapolis, aka Larva Inc. because Larva Inc let her crash at his parents' place. And a quote from hers is,

I knew literally nobody and I knew of nobody in Minneapolis, she says. But I went to South By right before I moved, and every person I met was from Minneapolis. Every band was from Minneapolis. And I was like, what the hell? There's something going on up there. So she just moved up there and tried it out. Isn't that insane?

That's so cool. Yeah, she was in an electro-soul pop duo called Lizzo in the Larva Inc. like you just mentioned. She also co-formed a three-female rap R&B group called The Chalice at this time, which is where she released her first album that she was on. It's called We're the Chalice. And it did really well locally. I looked it up.

You can see music videos of Chalice. It's a little bit more, it's a little harder, rougher. It's angrier. Yeah, it's angrier is what I was going to say. I think that is what the interesting part of doing all of this research has been is watching her transform from being an angry artist into being light and positive and fun. Not that what she is saying is light, but I mean in tone.

Overall, that I feel like she really learned how to change her sound to be able to make it more accessible to everyone, which is something you have to learn as you grow up is like, how do I change what I love what I'm doing into something that people really want to listen to? And that's a hard thing to do as an artist because you want to do exactly what you want to do.

Right. And if you're a monster like any of us, you have to go, oh, no, most people are afraid of me. You have to figure out how to change. And you change. And you change. And yeah, and of course she's fucking angry. Living out of her car with the father dying so young. And I mean, I remember too even, I've had a very fucking lucky ride, I think,

thus far in my life, knock on wood. but even I, like, in my earlier 20s, everything, everything was angry and rage-filled, like, the murderfuss sketch comedy stuff, you know what I mean? And I remember getting to a point with murder fist where I was like, you know, I'm getting kind of a little tired of just being so mad in my work. You know what I mean? Just because I just decided that was my aesthetic. Right. And 21 years old. You know what I mean?

And I think you see her do this, make this transition. Also, by the way, it was back in the day, everything was angry. hip-hop was angrier, rock was angrier. You know what I mean? And sometimes you also have to make adjustments to match the trends of what's going on and not just stay stuck in one lane. So that's where we get to Lizzo Bangers, her first solo debut, which is released on a label called Totally Gross National Product on October 15, 2013. This is an indie record label. It's based in Minneapolis, founded by Ryan Olson and Drew Christopher's son.

Ryan Olson produced the record along with Laser Beak, which is a indie. the stage name for a guy named Aaron Mader who produces tons of hip hop in Minneapolis and is the founder of the indie hip hop collective DoomTree. So again, she's... Do you know how she met Laserbeak? How she got to be able to work with him

is that she tweeted at him. She tweeted at him in a night in 2012, she tweeted at him that she really wanted to work with Laserbeek, who is the Minneapolis producer, and he responded. And he said he'd accept some Mike's hard lemonade as payment as payment.

instead of cash. So that night after she had had a show, she had been drinking, and she, Olson sent a car, Ryan Olson sent a car over for her to pick her up and bring her to this crazy loft apartment downtown.

And she said there were all these people there drinking and we freestyled in the kitchen back and forth all night. She gushed in an interview with interview magazine. From then on, I guess he wanted to work with me and Twitter made it happen. So thanks, Twitter. So cool.

Because it is. It's all in what you put. into it, which is nuts. Sometimes it is you're fighting and pushing and working your ass off for, you know, six months and nothing's happening. And then you do the dumbest little thing. Or you run into like the person that you had no fucking clue you need to talk to. And suddenly it's just like, oh, you just get pushed through this glass ceiling that you had no idea how to get through.

Sometimes by just being sassy online. And just asking. You know, I had somebody hit me up the other day on email, hilariously enough asking how they could get a writing agent, which I responded, I'd love for you to tell me if you ever find out because I don't have one. But what I could tell him was, hey, but I can say, you know, I've figured out how to at least get to the point where I can monetize doing stuff that I love for a living. And one of the most important items of feedback for him that I think people really need to keep in the front of their head.

It's not your manager. It's not your agent. Those aren't the people. Those are the people who once you're already making moves, they can help expand that growth for you. but it's about the collaborators and the colleagues and the people that you meet that you just say, God damn, and I want to work with you so bad. I remember the moment I saw Henry perform at FSU, and I literally just said to myself, that's the fucking guy I want to work with.

And I attacked him after the show and made it so. And if you see somebody that you find talented, you got to attack them. You got to hit them up. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? They just say, I don't really want to work with you. But, I mean, it's so important to, as opposed to, because you also see people in this business who try to sabotage other people who they think are better than them. And that's the wrong way to go. Obviously, though, you know, do it in a way that's an intelligent way. You don't want to just start showing up at people's front doors. No, don't do that. No, no, no. But that's what in there. Get me in.

That's what social media is for. That's like one of the great parts of where I think that we look at social media and with all of the downsides of it. But we forget about the positive sides where it's like, no. you can just DM someone. You don't know if they're going to respond. Like, I forget the DMs exist on Instagram, but like that's, you have to just try it sometimes. Yeah, totally. Totally.

So notable tracks, definitely check these out. You can find music videos of these. Unfortunately, Spotify, and I think it's because of her newer label was essentially trying to like launch, act as if like her last album was her debut album. So they removed, I believe, Lizzo Bangers from Spotify,

which is unfortunate. But you can find music videos for these songs and it's really good stuff. I really enjoyed it. Batches and Cookies. The video for that, by the way, very gay pride. It was done at like a pride protest or something like that, which is

really cool to see, especially back then when this was a bit, I would think even more risky to have that be the continuity of your video. You know what I mean? Especially as like a rap artist. I just thought that was so fucking cool. And then faded and then bus passes and happy meals

and Paris. All four of those. got music videos, so check them out, and they're really cool. And you can see, you can hear the evolution. So check out Chalice, check out music videos for Chalice, then check out Lizzobangers, and you see this halfway point between where she's about to get and what she's coming from. And it just is so exciting to watch. And this is when things start to initially happen first. She goes on tour for singer-songwriter Harmar Superstar and also sang in his band on that tour. This is 2013. Time, this is crazy. The Time magazine names her one of 14 music artists to watch in 2014.

And then the album gets re-released through Virgin Records, and she ends up doing this project called What's Underneath by Style Like You. And this is a project that I think was a big turning point for her career. It's described as authentic individuals of ages, races, body types, and genders remove layers of clothing while sharing, empowering stories about life, self-image, and identity. and this is the experience that inspired her to write My Skin, which she calls her thesis statement on her next album,

which would become... Such a good song! It's great, and I think it was one of those... It was really, like, touching and sad, but I think they asked her what she loves about her body in the interview, and she didn't have an answer, and it got her thinking a lot about how she saw herself. And how she feels about, especially when asked about your body,

it's really difficult. Any of us can name 20 things we don't. don't like about ourselves. And that is what's wrong with our society that you ask for one thing that you like about yourself. And if ask point blank, I would know what to say. I'd say mind your business. Mind your own business.

I'd say none, yeah. None. I'd say my fucking arms. Good for you. Thank you. I wouldn't say my arms. My arms are flabby. Women get flaps.

Yeah, we got flaps. I know it's negative. In a vice interview, she said, you can wake up and change many things about your appearance, but the inevitability of waking up in your skin is what unifies us. So next, she gets to do what she called surreal, almost like a fairy tale,

something I will never actually get over. She got to record with Prince! Isn't that that in? I had no idea. I didn't either. No idea that she was recorded. She had recorded with Prince, and can you imagine what kind of dream come true that is?

What did she record with Prince? So it was with her group Chalice. she got to do a track for Prince and his backing band Third Eye Girls album, which is called Plectrum Electrum, and this is in late 2014. It was for the song Boy Trouble. Mm-hmm. And so you've got

the My Skin situation with that project with style like you, and then also you've got the Prince situation. And she said that Prince near the end of his life, he was very intent on creating positive music and good vibes. And Lizzo said, I want that to be my mantra. and this is when we get Lizzo.

And she also said the biggest thing she learned from working with Prince was to stay true to your art. This is how you become an artist. You can be a musician, you can be a singer, you can play the drums. But when you're true to your art and the things that you create and you're true to yourself,

that's when you become an artist. When you do it unapologetically, keep it authentically you. Which, if that's not exactly what Lizzo portrays, it's insane, down to the fact of how we started this episode today of talking about also how she feels in the inside and what she struggles with as well, which is something that a lot of people try to hide from their persona. But that is, it's not her persona, it's who she is.

Oh yeah, and we'll get to that cover when we get to that album. But first of all, we've got to talk first about Big Girl Small World. That was her second album released in December 2015, and it was recorded in Justin Vernon, aka Bonnie Vair's studio, which is so fucking cool in Fall Creek, Wisconsin. It's called April Bass Studios. She had 25 demos

that did not even appear on the album. 25. 25. Which consists of 12 tracks. Yeah. Fucking crazy. Also, fucking crazy and jealous that I didn't get to see this tour.

She opened for Slater Kinney's comeback tour. What? That's cool. Shit. It would have been incredible. And that is where she got the chops that you see in her life. live shows today. She said it taught me how to be a crowd pleaser. I think it really helped her to

perform in front of like a non-hip hop R&B based per se audience. Just say white, Holden. White as fuck. White as fuck audience. You know, just a bunch of white lesbians. And that really helped her. That really helped her though get figure out how to like work any crowd and and really be all about just making everyone so happy in her live show, which her live show, again, watch that MTV performance. Look up anything you can for Lizzo's live shows. It's an inspiration. Her energy is unbelievable.

I could only attempt to match it. It's just such a special thing to see. And the fact that she keeps up that energy throughout the entire show. There's one specific one. If you look up an Atlanta concert of Lizzo's, that it is just two hours of... I don't know how she does it.

I don't know how she just keeps dancing, keep singing. keep playing the flute and just like lose her mind and just I couldn't look away. Oh man. And wearing those costumes with the tight ass corsets. Oh, how do you do that? I've just tired looking at her.

If I put one of those things on, I'm like, I'll take a couple photos and then I get this thing off. Then I'm good. I love we have your insight for the dancer side because that's definitely something Jackie and I don't know a lot about. She is truly like athletic on stage. It's crazy.

And her dancers too. Oh, they're amazing. They're fucking fantastic. So good. So let's get into the actual breakthrough. So again, by the way, two out full albums have already come out. All this attention, Time Magazine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's really not until we get to this section, 2016, that she actually starts to pick up like real steam as like a household name.

And because this is when she moves from Minneapolis to Los Angeles after signing with Atlantic. Yes. So she really does credit a lot of her developing her own, her vocal range to Ricky Reed, who is the producer that she works with in L.A. That really helped her find the vibe that she was really looking for. I really like that she has a lot of interviews talking about how she changed from what she was in Minneapolis. Then she said, in L.A., it's more of a collaboration of the mind. At the end of the day, you don't hear every person that was involved. You just hear the artist.

but in Minneapolis, you can hear every single artist involved when you collaborate. L.A. added polish. When you get to L.A. and you're in these songwriter rooms, they overthink a lot of lyrics. I did that for a few years when I moved here. There's a lot of thought process that went into that music, and I tried it out, and it just wasn't for me. I'm not an overthinker. I'm off the cuff. So this is at that time when she's starting to realize what worked for her and what did it. And this is in creating good as in coconut oil.

Yes, the EP coconut oil. By the way, also, Ricky Reed, he co-produced and co-wrote on hits like Pitbull's Fireball. Fireball. You know what I like Pitbull. I actually like that song. I like that Pitbull. Right? I like that Pitbull a little bit.

Several tracks from Halsey, Keisha, and Maggie Rogers, who were also big fans of who's been on the rise lately. And that's just to name just a few. And of course, he is credited on Good As Hell. It was originally planned to be a full-length release. She got way too excited, though, I think, about the few songs that she'd recorded and just said, fuck it, let's make an EP. The name of the EP came from her previous work being about how, quote, there's self-exploration, there's self-love, and there's self-realization, and that coconut oil is the ultimate ode to self-care and to my process.

I'm not there yet, but I'm creating my music so I can get there. She was very inspired for coconut oil by, essentially wanting to make music for her black audience more specifically, not that anybody can't enjoy it. She said a lot of my fans are backpackers and white kids. But as much as I love that, when I got to tour with Siza, I saw black women in the audience and the way they connected with my music was different than I had experienced.

I wanted to do a song that celebrated that and also celebrated myself. And the track also has, you can hear it in the beginning. It's kind of hard to make out fully. It features a speech from her grandmother's funeral. delivered by her cousin about the generations of strong women in her family, which, quote, sums up the whole reason I'm doing this, which I think is so beautiful. It's, it is a beautiful song.

I love, I love coconut. Oh, yeah, it's a beautiful song. I didn't realize that was what was in the song. That's cool. Yeah, it's like not super, you know, you can just hear a woman giving a speech. I think it's made to not necessarily be super clear, but it's just so beautiful that that is in there. For the song Phone, she went into the studio with Jesse Shatkin, who did Cia's Chandelier, and Evan Bogart, who did Beyonce's Halo.

And after some time of Riders Block, she was inspired by a memory of losing her phone at a bar in Minneapolis, which led to a bar fight. That sounds great. Phone is a great track, too. Fun is a fucking big. I love that song. So she's starting to do some cool stuff. She got to appear as a guest judge on Rupal's drag race. And in early 2018, she toured with Hame, as well as Florence and the Machine.

So she's really, yeah, big names. She was also a host of a short-lived music show called Wonderland on MTV. So what I'd like is that she just kind of tried different things. I'm just like, sure, I'll try it. Why not? You want me to try doing this? I'll try doing this. And before we get into Because I Love You and how fucking amazing that album and everything

about it is and her absolute takeover of the pop scene. I want to take a quick moment to mention where she gets a lot of her. style from because of course these pop people, they have teams and they have collaborators that help them with every aspect of their look and their sound and everything. And so that is greatly attributed to a woman named Quinn Wilson, which is her creative director on music videos, as well as her style guru. She's heavily influenced by Diana Ross, and I think that absolutely makes sense. Oh yeah, that shows. Lizzo said this about Diana Ross. She was the epitome of really glam and natural, but also really clean and not overdone.

We're going for Afrocentric Retro, which I love that phrase, Afrocentric Retro. I also discovered a well of curvy bloggers and finding a community like that is inspirational. I was used to seeing girls in size zero, seeing women like Ashley Graham has been really exciting and to see high fashion on a body that looks like me, which I think is super rad. Well, that's why I think another reason why I love Lizzo so much, she's so big into self-love. and that it's not about just like spending money on yourself or you know or treat yourself it's about learning how to love yourself when you're told by the media that you're not lovable that she said i was told i wasn't lovable by the media by people at school by not seeing myself in beauty ads by not seeing myself in television by lack of representation my self-hatred got so bad that i was fantasizing about being other people but you can't live your life trying to be somebody else what's the point And that's why I love that she really is She's way into more of self-care

Rather than self-indulgence And that's something that she that's part of her platform And she also shows it with her style Totally, but I also advocate for a little self-indulgence Yeah, baby, put a chip on it Oh yeah, give me that dip I mean, at least she is I do like that she's still slamming that tequila in the show

To say hey also I like to fucking party. Have a great, I just want to party with her. When can we party with her? When is that part of our lives? Do it. By the way, going back to Quinn Wilson really quick, I think it's really cool that they met each other when they were,

when Lizzo was 17 in Minneapolis as her makeup artist, which turned into a creative director over nine years, heading a tight team of artists. She also creative directs her tours. She says, everything we create together for the tour, from tour lighting to costumes to production design, is in service of letting Lizzo's personality shine through

and whatever we're making. She's very inspired by the architecture of Ricardo Bofel in terms of set design. And if you look up his, like, Google Image search, his stuff, it's very cool looking. It's very, like, maze-like and blocky. And it makes a lot of sense having seen stills from her stage show.

See, this is the thing. I feel like with everything that I want with my career, it's like, I haven't fleshed out enough. I'm older than Lizzo, and I have no idea. I don't know what I want. I don't know where I'm going. You need a creative director. I think, she's trying to tell me I should be my own creative director.

I should do what I want to do. Yeah, for sure. And we touched on this a little earlier, but we talked about like in a more traditional entertainment industry, people were sort of quote unquote discovered when they were very young. And now, you know, the social media platforms have allowed us as people to decide a little bit more about who we like and who's talented and not being about who's the most easily manipulated at a young age to be whatever they're going to be. So you don't have to, the media and the industry has really put this idea on that like

you have to be this like super young person to make it. And if you don't, then you need to quit. But if you really want to do what you're doing, you have to keep going. And it doesn't matter. You can hit whenever and you're still fucking valid and good and sometimes better. Yeah. And that's what my favorite. There's this quote that she's like, when creatives are like,

that are working in like these big departments are like, well, you clearly have a vision. She says, yeah, bitch, I have a vision. I've been visualizing and making that vision manifest for years. And, you know, aren't you guys so glad sexy babies, no longer the like MTV everything? Yeah, oh, because it was being molded by like 55-year-old music execs. They're like, this is fine, right? this little girl who's asking to get fucked

and make a skirt shoulder I want to slap on it get me a cigar I love Britney Spiris and I can't wait to do an episode under but yeah totally hit me baby and you're just like is this okay what's yeah you're upset even I was young then

and just being like I'm uncomfortable I was yes I was this similar I was the same age because you know she was under the age of 18 Lizzo was a full grown woman That is just, and especially that it is a positive message of your own strength as a human being of just like owning yourself and what you are as opposed to just like, as well as someone that, you know, as my entire life, I've been a bigger woman. And that I feel like I've used sex for a long time of like, I can still get it to show my power. And that's not what Lizzo's doing here.

And it's great to have an inspiration that's not just like big girls can fuck too. just what I feel like I've always tried to live my best to live by, but like, that's not. We get it, Jackie. You can also fuck. You've proven of the world. You can also fuck. You can fuck. So coconut oil released in 2016.

Three years of work happens between that album coming out and the reason for this season I feel like here, the album, because I love you. Lizzo said, for a long time, I didn't want to be that big black. girl with a soulful voice. That's how we were tokenized. The big black girls were always the belters and I've always been afraid of being put into that box. But you know what? I am a big fat black girl that can sing. Hell yeah, you are. And I can rap and I can dance. I started to embrace, I started to embrace how good I can finally sing and now I'm celebrating that. And this is where that gospel inspiration just soars especially right out of the gate with because I love you.

Fuck, that song just hits immediately. Oh, good. And all of the music videos are so good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you've got juice. Inc. Juice gets stuck in my head constantly. Oh, yeah.

Tempo, like you opened it up with, featuring Missy Elliott is such a fuck. Any one of these. Oh, such a dream combo. I love Missy. So much. And the fact that, like, Missy Elliot was always one of her inspirations, and the fact that she reached out to her and then worked with her.

So great. This is also coming in between all of these things. She is becoming an internet. like a social media sensation. So through all of this, she also got picked up where she had that video of her at BeautyCon as she's driving off on this little golf cart

and she goes, bye bitch. And then Kanye took the bye bitch. It was used against Kanye West for getting President Donald Trump to sign his MAGA hat. And that became an internet sensation. And then also in October 2018 when Lizzo posted a video caption, have you ever seen a bitch

play flute then hit the shoot? Which is when she started flutin on the Instagrams, man. And then also utilizing TikTok, which is a huge reason of how because I love you sword is because, as we all know, on page 7, we're big fans of Old Town Road.

But to use the, I just took a DNA test, turns out, I'm 100% that bitch. And it's utilized in TikTok, which is a great way to get the word of Lizzo out. And she spread like wildfire. And we should also mention here, because this is a little bit of a confusion. Truth hurts.

She drops that single in 2017, and it just slowly becomes more and more popular until two years later. They included it. It's this viral hit, like it's got the TikTok action going on, and they end up including it in the deluxe edition. But it's this crazy, and that's actually how the album stayed in the top 10

for, like, extra months. Is by adding the deluxe edition on? Because it was such a sleeper hit that just began, became massive for her on an already incredible album of just amazing hits all throughout it. It's just this amazing story. I love this quote. This is her talking about why she works so well in a studio.

And it is important. I feel like I need to at some point sit down and even learn some basic music theory, even learn some basic like piano. She said, I am classically trained in music theory and music performance. So I have an innate ear and actually a highly skilled ear. when it comes to frequency and harmony and dissonance and melody. So for me, it's this thing that I can feel in my body. I'm almost like a tuning fork,

where if I hear the beat and I vibrate at the level that I'm supposed to, I know that's what I want to get on. And from being trained, I think it's easier for me to speak a language to producers, and I can speak engineer to engineers. I think we all just have so much fun nerding out. I'm credited as a producer on a couple of the songs because I was there and my DNA is in there as well. And just having been spent time in the studio, there's such a disconnect.

I feel like between if you don't speak engineer to engineers and if you don't speak producer to producer, you have to try to figure out how to translate what you're looking for. And that can sometimes be half the battle in terms of finding your sound. And so I totally believe it when she says all of this. That makes so much sense for why her album is just on another level. Yeah, totally. It's the same. If any collaborative project, if it's a theater,

or a film set, you have to be able to speak of those different languages or it's just not gonna come together as well as it could. And she's obviously really good at it. I'm still waiting for Jerome to hit. Because Jerome is, I think, it might be, even above tempo, and that's saying something. This is hurtful to say, Jerome is such a good song.

And the way that she belt, it gives me, tingles through my entire body. And I'm just like, I know that feeling. I have had that feeling for another human being before. Did you ever see the Instagram video that somebody was holding up a sign at her show that said, Pedro, and Lizzo saw it while she was singing it. And she changed it to Pedro.

That's great. I love it. She said it's definitely the most fun and the most free record I've made. All the projects I've done before it was like, this is a good song. But with this project, I'm like, I'm like, like, damn, I can't wait to hear that shit in the stadium. What I enjoy is that Lizzo thought that Juice was more of a pop forward single, but that she thought that Truth Hurts was way more of a song for her.

It had way more of her own voice in it because of her humor on the track that she feels that there wasn't enough of in some of the other songs, which is why she identifies with Truth hurts, and that's way more her. And I dig that. I mean, it probably is one of the reasons so many people are drawn to her. her. She's really funny. Like she's like naturally like really fucking funny. Oh, her Instagram is just amazing. Hey to bring up Tiny Desk again, but she totally has these like amazing improvised moment when she picks up the Emmy and like she just has all these little fucking hilarious moments and even built

into the songs a little bit. You know what I mean? She said, I'm older. I'm wiser. I'm feeling like I'm getting actualized. I genuinely care about living a quality life. And if y'all going to look up to that, then that's cool. I want people to be happier. I've seen how sick the world is. I've seen how sad people can be. I've been that person. And I genuinely want to use my gifts and talents that I was blessed with to make sure that shit is even a fraction less sad than it is now. And I also, I really want to shout out there. She did this interview. Lizzo actually interviewed Janelle Monet for them. If you look it up, Janelle Monet Living Out Loud, because

Lizzo performed with Janelle Monet at Coachella this year and just did like a song with her, which was one of always, it was her dreams to do because I also love Janelle Monet. And they talked about together, they talked about sexual fluidity and about how Lizzo was raised not

identifying herself as anything. She said it's not just what you like in that moment. I've seen fluidity change with age. I've seen people come out in their sexual identity in their 40s. and 50s, yet there's so much pressure on young people to choose an identity. When you're a teenager and your hormones are jumping off, it's like choose an identity, choose a sexual orientation. It's like how? When I like everything sometimes, and I like nothing

sometimes. I totally agree. And I can't, I couldn't agree more. This interview is so, it's just like, it spoke to me on so many levels of, I love that Lizzo doesn't outwardly speak to. Yes, she talks about love and yes she talks about dudes and she talks about how she feels things like that but she is not pigeonholing herself into anything she is what she is and she is lizzo and i love that about her this interview just like i mean it made me cry at points of just talking about like that the pressure that people feel to be something and to choose something when i don't know i love the line when i like everything sometimes and i like nothing sometimes Um, what did you guys, I mean, do you remember just seeing the album cover for the first time?

Because I was just like, damn, that's a fucking, I don't even know, I don't even know if I want to say statement because I don't know if it's like, but it was just like, that's a fucking iconic album cover. Oh, definitely. It's iconic for fucking short. It's beautiful. She's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. Even on like as a dancer, the way it's composed is really well thought out. and you can see what expression is coming through

that really simplistic position. It really speaks. It's an organic moment, too, and I think that's why it shines so much as it does. I love this quote from her. This is the last quote I have, and I'm done of her talking about how she ended up with that album cover.

Yeah, I'm sorry there's so many quotes too, but it's like she's so eloquent with her words. She's so eloquent. I almost teared up like four different times this episode. So she said, we had done a lot of poses that day, and I was tooting my butt up, and then my back was hurting a little bit. So I just kind of relaxed and leaned forward. And then the photographer was just like, look at me. And I looked at him.

And that was the shot. So that was just me so comfortable, not trying to cover anything up. But you know, that's just how the magic happens. Yeah. Oh, I love her. So I love that you said that, Natalie, about how much just the physicality shines and that it's because she wasn't trying. Right. And she wasn't trying to force like a sexual pose. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this just feels much more organic and like, and it's still so beautiful and sexy and emotional without trying.

So that, you know, it's super iconic like you said. Yeah. I think I'm about out of stuff. Yeah. I just want to, I guess I just want to thank, I want to thank Lizzo. I want to thank the fact that like that she is someone that is now there to be an inspiration. not only for us and for people older than us, but for young people as well. And I wish that I'd had someone like her to look up to. And I think that I may have been more comfortable in my own skin growing up

if I had had more people like Lizzo to look to, to feel better about myself. Not that you have to put how you feel on other people, but just seeing someone that owns themselves, it was something it took me a long time and many years of therapy. to get to be able to like myself, even just a little bit. And being able to see Lizzo

and being open about her struggles, we need it. And young people need it. And we all need it. We all do, especially, especially all the fucked up adults we have right now. Yeah, there's a lot of fucked up adults out there. I would also say,

I'm just going to tell her, fucking get it with all of the commercials she's getting all of them. Yeah. Been soundtracks for a bunch of movies. Like, you know, she's just, every time you turn the TV on, she's got another song on a commercial,

and I'm like, bitch, you get that money. That's fucking awesome. And also she, I think really when I first listened to her, she was on a soundtrack for a movie called, a comedy called Blockers that it was like, it was amidst the sea of mediocre comedies, and I think probably got lost a little bit. It's actually pretty good.

It's a pretty good movie. really female positive, but also like really raunchy and it's great. And she has some songs on that. And that's what I first found her and was like, oh, this is the chick. Jackie's been talking about. Because good as hell as someone that went through a very, very bad breakup was my anthem. I listened to that song 10 times a day. And there's just something.

I mean, it just gets into, it gets into you. And you just were like, no, you know what? I do. I'm choosing to feel good today. And there are some days when you struggle with mental illness, there's some days that you feel like you can't choose to feel good as hell. And some days you can't. And you got to own it, man.

Yeah, 100%. And I'm so excited to see what the future holds for her. I'm really excited to see her try to break into acting because I do think she can do some cool stuff. That was that whole online joke that also should have kind of been real about her playing Ursula, which would have been fucking amazing. But it's Latifah, so that's also. So, yeah, that works too. That works great.

And she was fun in hustlers. I wish I had seen more of her in hustlers. And I wish I had seen her dance more in hustlers. Or if they had utilized her flute. But, you know, you can't have it all, I guess. Put her flute in it. I'll put her flute in it. She'll also be in the new American pie because, you know,

the, you remember. That was a terrible joke to end on. But that is the terrible joke that we will end on. I think that that about wraps it up, right guys? If you have anything else, say it now. No, I think that this is great. Again, I just want to say thank you to Lizzo. And if you're not listening to Lizzo, please give it a checkouts.

Yeah, give it a listen, Lou. I'm glad we're helping promote her because she needs a lot of help. Yeah, she really needs it. She needs it. We love you guys. Thanks so much for joining us on this week's page seven. Pop History on Lizzo. We love you.

Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you. Thanks to our ad sponsors, you can support our shows by supporting them. For more shows like the one you just listened to, go to lastpodcastnetwork.com.