Lizzo teases her sophomore album, reflects on speaking out against online bullying
Lizzo teased her long-awaited second studio album in a new interview and said she is "proud" of it.
Speaking with Variety, the Grammy winner revealed that she'd been working on her sophomore record since before her debut, "Cuz I Love You," hit shelves in April 2019.
"Broadly, I've been working on this album since the summer of 2018," said Lizzo. "It has evolved to a place where I'm proud. It's one of the most musically bada**, daring and sophisticated bodies of work I've done to date."
The "Rumors" singer revealed that, although she has been working on her labor of love for about four years now, she is still deciding when to release it.
"I am not done. I'm still pushing out the hits, baby. And I hope that it is some of the most useful pieces of music to ever exist," she explained. "All I want to do is help people through my music."
And while Lizzo is autobiographical with her hits, the singer revealed that her upcoming work is a little different than what fans have come to expect of her. "It is a love album. I'm shocked," she dished.
Lizzo also let it slip that this album is "personal" as well, because she will "never be the kind of artist that's like, 'This album is about a story I wrote; it's not real.'"
During the singer's chat with Variety, she also spoke about the online bullying she's received and her choice to previously call it out in an Instagram Live last year.
In the 13-minute video, the singer spoke about attacks she received after releasing "Rumors" with rapper Cardi B.
Reflecting on the day she shared the live video, Lizzo said that the new song had just dropped and she saw "something really awful" about herself online.
"I never want to address the thing that broke me, because people will continue to use it," she continued. "It had nothing to do with the song ... It was something about me and who I am as an artist and what I represent. And it was very f------ racist and very, very harmful."
She said that the comment "kind of pushed me to my limit."
After opening up publicly about the impact of the online hate, she said her emotions shifted.
"I said what I had to say, and I honestly felt better," she told the outlet. "I got to walk into this room of women who looked like me and who would understand exactly what I’m going through, and I got to play the song and be in that moment with them ... It was one of those things that happened in my life that was a blessing."
Along with preparing for her highly anticipated upcoming album, Lizzo is also starring in and executive producing a new reality TV series, "Lizzo’s Watch Out for the Big Grrrls." The new show, arriving March 25 on Amazon Prime, documents Lizzo's search for dancers for her tour.
