Early Life
Lizzo is one of the most popular musical artists out there right now and she is not going to go anywhere any time soon. Although she is just experiencing success, she has been in the industry trying to make a name for herself for quite some time. Melissa Viviane Jefferson was born on April 27, 1988, in Detroit, Michigan.
Jefferson didn’t get her start with music until she moved with her family at the age of 10 to Houston, Texas.
Lizzo has stated that she comes from a musical family and therefore gravitated towards the arts. Growing up in Houston really did wonders for the artist in terms of discovering who she was as a performer.
Not only was she in the marching band from eighth grade until college but she also formed a few different groups. For example, Lizzo formed Cornrow Clique where she rapped and performed with her friends. Performing in the high school band made her realize that she could draw from her more classical influences and also incorporate her love of rap into her work.
After graduating from High School, Lizzo made her way to college and found out that playing flute was one of her biggest passions and that she was going to pursue it professionally. The artist told NPR “I was the baddest piccolo in the land, ’cause I got big lungs. And I was really determined.”
Breaking Into the Industry
Although most of her life, she experienced nothing but support from her family, and her friends Lizzo experienced tragedy when she was just 21-years-old.
When her father died, Lizzo lost that support she needed to keep her moving forward in Houston. However, instead of succumbing to her depression from not only the death of her father but the breakup of her rock band, she decided to go out and try something new. Figuring out what was next came easy to Lizzo when she was visiting Minneapolis and someone told her she would come out there and pursue a career in music.
After the inspirational trip, she did what she had to do and that was packing up her car and moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unfortunately for a while, the artist had to live in her car as soon as she landed in the city.
She told Rolling Stone about that difficult time and how rewarding it was “I went to Minneapolis and I played a show at the Varsity, and this girl came over to me crying and said, ‘I don’t know if you live here but you need to be here and we need to see people like you here.’ That was the most love I had seen from any show in one person.” And although Lizzo said that time was extremely hard that it was beneficial to her as an artist.
Now Lizzo spends all of her time in Los Angeles. She told Rolling Stone that being in Los Angeles wasn’t necessarily a choice, but more of a solution to seriously pursuing music. “Obligatory. I moved here for two reasons, none of them because I wanted to be here. I have so much anxiety, and always get weirded out living in places that are on fault lines. But here I am. I moved out here because I was working on Coconut Oil and I had gotten a gig hosting the show Wonderland. I was like, “This is temporary,” but two years later I’m setting up shop in Echo Park,” she said.
While living in Minneapolis, Lizzo got involved with various people in the industry. She performed with various groups including the R&B group Chalice that saw some local success after releasing the album “We Are the Chalice.”
Her next venture was performing alone and working with producers Lazerbreak and Ryan Olson. With them, she released “Lizzobangers” on October 15, 2013, that caught the attention of The Guardian where it was given 4 out of 5 stars. The album was so popular that she went on tour throughout the United States and the UK in 2013. The album was also polished and re-released through Virgin Records that next year.
Minneapolis is where Lizzo got her first chance at being a professional artist. There she was co-signed by Prince. The artist said the experience completely changed her life and she realized that she could do what she loved professionally.
She told Rolling Stone, “It was extremely surreal. Mind you, I’ve been doing music my whole life and I hadn’t been very successful at a music career. Then as soon as I get to Minneapolis on a whim, I get to do something that a very small percentage of people have gotten to do. I used to be so upset that I never had co-signs. I was like “How come all these other rappers get co-signs?” I always thought about who got the rap cosign. I’m too weird for the rappers and too black for the indies. I was just sitting in this league of my own. To be embraced by Prince and co-signed, I am eternally grateful for that. I can’t complain about not getting a co-sign anymore. I got the ultimate co-sign.”
After seeing a lot of success from her first album, Lizzo decided that she should continue and build traction by getting back into the studio as soon as possible. Her second studio album, “Big Grrrl Small World,” was released December 11, 2015, and caught the attention of Spin Magazine. The magazine rated her new release was placed at number 17 on their “Best Hip Hop Albums of 2015” list.
In 2016 Lizzo was offered a position on the show Wonderland and also signed to Atlantic Records. That same year she released “Coconut Oil” through her first major record label. Her single “Good As Hell” started blowing up and gaining quite a bit of traction. The album not only received positive reviews from critics but it also got placed at No. 14 on the Rolling Stone’s “20 Best Albums of 2016” list.
Body Positivity Movement
Due to her rising popularity, people started noticing she wasn’t only talented because of her musical talents, but she is an outspoken member of the body positivity and acceptance movements. Lizzo told Rolling Stone that she has always felt like an outsider and total weirdo in the industry and that being body positive is her calling.
“I feel like I’m on a mission. Since the moment I started performing, people — mostly men — would look at me after the shows and be like “How do you do that? I’m tired just looking at you!” And I’m just so sick of hearing those comments after my shows! You’re out of breath looking at me because you’re shocked that I can do this. You don’t say that to FKA Twigs or Beyoncé. You’re going to say it to me because you expect me to be exhausted. What is it about me? Oh it’s my size, cool. Alright,” she told Rolling Stone.
On June 11, 2018, she got to appear in her first fashion campaign with ModCloth. That same month she got to walk the runway in a plus-size outfit made for FIT which stands for the Future of Fashion.
Lizzo said that learning how to love her own body was kind of difficult being part of the entertainment industry.
She told NPR “I remember I had this epiphany that this was it. I think I was, like 21, because that was the worst year of my life thus far: My father passed away, I was homeless, I didn’t have any money, my band was doing really badly and I was by myself. I hadn’t been eating because I didn’t have money, and I was honestly the smallest physically I’d ever been — and still, that was the worst I’d ever felt about myself. And I remember one day being like, “This is it.” Twenty-some-odd years of me believing that one day I can wake up and be some other girl. It’s like, you’re not gonna wake up and be bigger or smaller or lighter or darker; your hair’s not gonna suddenly grow down past your knees. You’re going to look this way for the rest of your life. And you have to be OK with that.”
Rise to Stardom
If Lizzo didn’t experience a huge year in 2018, she only saw more success in 2019. There she got to play a supporting role alongside Jennifer Lopez in the strip, crime-comedy movie Hustlers.
Her hit song ‘Juice” was released and saw huge, commercial success. If that wasn’t enough, the artist’s 2017 song “Truth Hurts” received international airplay and saw giant success. Her name was everywhere and she finally worked her way up into a status that sells out arenas. Her first world tour, for example, sold out within minutes. She released her first EP “Cuz I Love You” which debuted at number six on the Billboard Charts.
Because her song “Truth Hurts” was so popular, the artist decided to re-release the song on the deluxe version of the EP. She also acted in the Netflix movie “Something Great” and late that year she appeared on Saturday Night Live for the first time alongside Eddie Murphy.
One of Lizzo’s signature moves on stage is somehow incorporating her flute into the mix. She says that she also likes to incorporate it into her studio albums. “I have snuck her into all of my records, but this is the first time my flute was front and center, and there’s no going back now. I’ve been warning people, “You just wait until this nerd gets into hip-hop. I will make everybody love the flute again,” She told NPR. She also learned how to incorporate her flute into her rapping when she was on the bus going to band practice in Houston. “There was a lot of freestyling on the bus, there was a lot of freestyling in the cafeteria, and there was a lot of freestyling on the radio. And I would call into this morning show and try to get through so I could do the freestyle. … You could win tickets, but it was really just exhilarating having to freestyle on the spot like that and knowing that thousands of people can hear you. So when I discovered at a young age that I could put bars together, I kind of became addicted to it. And like the flute, I practiced and wanted to be the best at it.”
With an artist as unique and refreshing as Lizzo, it should come to no surprise that she is influenced by some of the biggest artists around. For example, Lizzo credits Lauryn HIll most of all as being one of her biggest influences.
She also credits Missy Elliot as one of her influences and even featured the rapper on her commercially popular hit track “Tempo.” Diana Ross and Beyonce are also some of Lizzo’s favorite artists that made her realize that she could also make it as a singer.
When asked about her personal life, Lizzo says that she doesn’t ascribe to anything in terms of sexuality. She said that love and gender fall on a spectrum and that it is hard to nail down to just one thing.
The artist refers to her fans as “Lizzbians” and often performs at pride festivals. She said that becoming who she is today as the body positive star that she is today is due to her social media presence. She says that she enjoys Instagram but got rid of her Twitter citing that there are too many trolls there. She has also been known to be a very vocal advocate for mental health and often discusses her own struggles on the site.
During the Australian fires in early 2020, the artist halted part of her performances so she could lend a hand and help. Then, she volunteered amongst a bunch of locals at a foodbank. She didn’t just go for a photo op either, she spent hours helping out and hand out food to people in need.
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