Lizzo is getting candid about the stigma surrounding pop music in a new interview.
The 34-year-old “Am I Ready” singer went into depth about the difference between pop music and race music, the latter of which many know nothing about.
Lizzo explained that race music was used to segregate Black artists, and said that genres were created almost like code words, for example with R&B, which eventually led to the birth of hip-hop and rap.
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“Genre’s racist inherently,” Lizzo told Entertainment Weekly. “I think if people did any research they would see that there was race music and then there was pop music. 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.”
She also said that it seemed that different genres of music were created like codes.
“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,” Lizzo says.
She added that while pop is popular, it’s important to remember that it has a “racist origin.”
In the same conversation, she also addressed the backlash she’s faced in the industry, of people thinking she and her music aren’t Black enough.
“I think anything that’s new, people are going to criticize and feel like it’s not for them,” Lizzo said. “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,” adding, “You just gotta get used to me because I’m making good shit. You missing out.”
If you didn’t see, Lizzo recently won her very first Emmy. Read her speech here.
