Remember when we all loved Lizzo? In 2019 ‘Juice’ (the last great party anthem BP – Before Pandemic) was a thrilling throwback groove, variously described as ‘delightfully outrageous’ and ‘a self-esteem boosting anthem’. Having lived in her car at one point during years of rejection from the music industry – partly for not possessing the usual video-vixen hotness required from young black female singers – it was lovely to see Lizzo suffering from neither modesty nor the #BeKind blight. ‘I just took a DNA test/Turns out I’m 100 per cent that b****’ she crowed in the break-up song ‘Truth Hurts’.
Which made it a shame that in her single ‘Special’ this year she gave an impersonation of a world-weary piñata:
‘Woke up this mornin’ to somebody judgin’ me/Found out it in the end that I can only do it for me/You call it sensitive and I call it superpower/You just lack empathy ‘cause you think it gives you power/You’re special/I’m so glad that you’re still with us/Broken, but damn, you’re still perfect/You’re special.’
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