“This is the place I didn’t know who I was. “This is the place I was most insecure,” Lizzo revealed, sharing that difficult memory with members of the UH band on her visit. She was homeless for a period, living in her car to dedicate herself to music, and she had an admittedly difficult time in college. The year 2019 was not Lizzo’s only spectacular success. “When you hide who you are, it makes it harder for people to get to know you and get to love you, but as soon as you are unashamed of who you are – I was so nervous that people would call me a nerd or think I wasn’t cool – but as soon as I showed the world all of me, that’s when they started to fall in love with me.”
Now, her flute has its own Instagram account with more than 300,000 followers. At that moment, she had the flute in her hand. Lizzo recalls the exact moment during one performance when she realized she broke through with fans and really connected. Then the flute made its way onto her concert stage. She began with playing the flute on Instagram videos, which went viral.
She credits her late father with always telling her the flute would be her path to success, though she argued with him, because she thought the audience would think the instrument was uncool, and then she would be thought uncool, too.īut her connection with the flute was undeniable and Sasha found her way back into Lizzo’s professional repertoire.
Back then she named her flute Sasha after Beyoncé’s album, I Am … Sasha Fierce, the name of Beyoncé’s onstage alter ego. Lizzo often says the flute chose her when it was offered up by a middle school band teacher in sixth grade. At 30, she has been beating the musical drum, playing gigs, forming bands, alternating from electro pop to R&B, to flute and back and forth again, for well over a decade. Though one of the Grammy nominations is for “Best New Artist,” Lizzo will be quick to tell you she is no overnight success. “I would body shame myself every single day, and ask ‘Why can’t I fit that?’ or ‘Why does my body look like this?’ I have to look at every single thing I’m shaming and find love in those things,” said Lizzo of her method for overcoming her own insecurities.Īs she found that love, she broke through to become a force of nature, an undeniable piece of American culture and music. She admits it’s a road she has well-traveled. Though the mantle makes her nervous, she doesn’t want it to seem trendy, she has said that “body positivity only exists because body negativity is the norm." With her exuberant celebration of what makes her unique Lizzo swiftly became a role model for the body-positive movement, and also for people everywhere who struggle with self-doubt. Yes, she is an extraordinary musician, but she is also – in her own words – a whole “damn meal.” Her main dish is music, with an appetizer of attitude, side order of self-love, and dramatic performance for dessert – served onstage by a scantily-clad, voluptuous artist who is proud to pose nude on a record cover and implores others to be equally confident. To describe her as a pop and rhythm and blues singer and classically-trained flautist almost gives short shrift to the artist who is Lizzo. is TIME's 2019 Entertainer of the Year #TIMEPOY /5tnfRTXpiJ- TIME December 11, 2019