Lizzo has spoken candidly about her career as a Black pop artist and how the genre, in her words, has a "racist origin".
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 34-year-old chart-topper spoke about how Black musicians have effectively been barred from pop music.
"Genre’s racist inherently," the 'Truth Hurts' hitmaker said. "I think if people did any research they would see that there was race music and then there was pop music."
She continued: "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."
Lizzo went on to suggest that genres were created as "code words" and listed Black-dominated music genres such as RnB, hip-hop and rap as examples of such.
She said: "I think 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.
"So yes, because of that — fast-forward to 2022 — we have this well-oiled pop machine, but remember that it has a racist origin. And I think the coolest thing I've seen is rap and hip-hop artists become pop. Now pop music is really rap in its DNA — rap is running the game, and I think that's so cool."
The 'About Damn Time' singer then spoke about the influence of Black pop divas in the late 80s and early 90s, mentioning artists such as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.
Lizzo continued: "And I'm giving that same energy. I'm giving that same energy with a little bit of rap, and I think that people just have to get used to me."
She went on: "I think anything that's new, people are going to criticize and feel like it's not for them. But once you know what it is — just like I've got a friend who don't like avocado but she likes guacamole; it don't make no sense — but once you get used to something, it might be for you.
"So for people who don't like pop music or don't like Black artists that make pop music, they may eventually like me. I might be guacamole to them. You just gotta get used to me because I'm making good s***. You missing out."
