Pop music is “inherently” racist, Lizzo said in an interview published Friday.
“If people did any research they would see that there was race music and then there was pop music,” the singer-rapper told EW. “And race music was their way of segregating Black artists from being mainstream, because they didn't want their kids listening to music created by Black and brown people because they said it was demonic and yada, yada, yada.
“So then there were these genres created almost like code words: R&B, and then of course eventually hip-hop and rap was born from that. When you think about pop, you think about MTV in the '80s talking about ‘We can't play rap music’ or ‘We can't put this person on our platform because we're thinking about what people in the middle of America think’ — and we all know what that's code for.”
Lizzo noted that pop music has evolved. “The coolest thing I've seen is rap and hip-hop artists become pop,” she said. “Now pop music is really rap in its DNA — rap is running the game, and I think that's so cool.”
Lizzo was promoting her new documentary Love, Lizzo, now available on Crave. In it, she talks about early criticism that neither she nor her music were Black enough.
“We forget that in the late '80s and the early '90s, there were these massive pop diva records that were sang by Black women like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey. And I'm giving that same energy,” said Lizzo. "I'm giving that same energy with a little bit of rap, and I think that people just have to get used to me.
“So for people who don't like pop music or don't like Black artists that make pop music, they may eventually like me … You just gotta get used to me because I'm making good s**t. You missing out.”
Lizzo is scheduled to play Montreal's Bell Centre on May 4, 2023.
Crave is part of Bell Media, parent company of this website.