Lizzo Is On the Charts with All Systems on Go, Lensed by Campbell Addy for Vanity Fair

We’re late to Lizzo’s November 2022 Vanity Fair US cover story event — and what a reading experience it is. Now that New York’s Governors Ball has announced Lizzo in its 2023 edition June 9-11 at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, it’s time we do some serious Lizzo duty.

The uber talent well on her way to becoming a super star is making waves across America, and we’re here for it. Vanity Fair November was a long-interview pit stop with Lisa Robinson and it came with a perfect title: ‘Everything’s coming up Lizzo, and it’s about damn time.’ [It’s too late for AOC to gift the article but hopefully you can read it.]

Lizzo was styled by the one and only Patti Wilson, with photography by Campbell Addy [IG]. / Hair by Shelby Swan; makeup by Alex Mayo

Lizzo Talks Brass Tacks

The interview happened in July and it’s been a wild ride for Lizzo ever since. At AOC business is business and Lizzo immediately got down to politics in her interview. Grade A love to Lizzo for that move.

Following that the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, Lizzo donated $500,000 to Planned Parenthood and the National Network of Abortion Funds, and she had Live Nation, her tour promoter, match that with another $500,000.

Lizzo is outspoken about just about everything, and we will adopt her choice words about the state of key, majority-support issues in America. “Thoughts and prayers just don’t fucking cut it anymore,” she says.

Lizzo is clear that she’s not condemning the Biden administration. “I’m just very curious as to what kind of real steps they can take.”

Americans answered that question in November, 2022, but it didn’t send any warning message to Republicans in Congress who still don’t agree that President Biden is legitimately elected.

This next paragraph will cause some sighs, but this is Lizzo’s pov and she’s entitled to it.

I’m writing and switching paragraphs around so that this next tough-talking paragraph from her Vanity Fair interview is followed by Lizzo’s 2021 TEDMonterey Talk.

“The Supreme Court has politicized law and made it a weapon against human rights,” she adds. “An overwhelming amount of people did not agree with what the Supreme Court did. It’s about power and control. It’s about white male supremacy; it’s always been about white male supremacy in this country and the people who are complicit in helping uphold it—who are a lot of white women. The women who voted for Donald Trump. The façade that ‘America, we’re all in this together.’ No, we’re not. Black people have been dehumanized so much—especially Black women. I’d like to be an optimist, but I’m a chronically disappointed optimist,” she continues. “The way Black women have been treated in this country has made me feel very hopeless. I don’t think there was a time when [we] were treated fairly and with respect. If I see hope in this country, it will come from the accountability of the people who have the privilege. As a fat Black woman, this country has never gone forward; it’s stayed pretty much the same for me.”

Lizzo Takes TWO Really Big Stages

We have many levels of TED Talks today, and this is the real deal original TED Talk, and Lizzo cannot believe she is on stage to make the case for twerking at TEDMonterey.

I’ve watched the entire TED presentation, and Lizzo is just great.

If you are a white woman who thinks she sounds a little bit too hostile in her VF interview, consider her flute playing at the Library of Congress on September 26.

Classically trained in the flute, Lizzo played various collectible flutes in the Reading Room and flute vault at the Library of Congress where she was invited on a closed to the public day that coincided with a big concert in DC.

A Descendant of Slaves Meets the Master

Among the instruments she played was America’s fourth president James Madison’s crystal flute. Considered the “Father of the Constitution”, Madison accepted the gift from France and it’s part of a collection of nearly 2,000 flutes at the Library of Congress.

To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the flute had never been played by another human.

So impressed by Lizzo’s mastery of flute-playing, the Library of Congress decided to bring the flute to the arena for Lizzo’s big concert.

“She is amazingly talented,” said Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, who serves as the curator for the flute collection. She told the Washington Post that she handed Lizzo more than a half-dozen types of flutes and she could play them all.

“That girl is filled with so much positive energy,” Ward-Bamford said. “It was one happy afternoon watching her enjoy and love being at the [closed day] library and Great Hall.”

This is the exact response that I had watching Lizzo’s TED Talk. Her positive energy is infectious — it’s overflowing, and I am very into people’s energy.

We have a change in plans here. The more I read the story, it will get its own Part 2 post. The story of the actual flute collection is fantastic and deserves its own space.

If the Library of Congress wants to be more embedded in popular culture, let me give them a ride on AOC.

Additionally, I want to separate the MAGA response from this gorgeous story and the Vanity Fair interview.

Acknowledging that there are some racist white women with MBA’s from prestigious universities — in the aggregate, educated white women are majority Democrats. I am one of those women, who is always doing cleanup in aisle 5 over all white women.

HOWEVER, when I read the total crap [I knew about it previously] that Lizzo went through from notable Republican women, I will just continue to bear the white woman’s burden of being associated with other white women she can’t stand.

Anne Would Have Slapped the Face of Jenna Ellis

Had I been standing next to or anywhere near Jenna Ellis, a former campaign lawyer for Donald Trump, hearing her words about this fantastic event and Lizzo playing the flute, I would have slapped her face and probably gone to jail until my wealthy Republican friends busted me out and got the charges dropped.

MAGA hates me, so Trump would have been tweeting “Give her a life sentence. She tried to kill my lawyer.”

No wonder so many people of color hate us. I am so disgusted with the specific quotes from people about this fabulous Lizzo flute-playing event, I will quote Ellis in pt 2 of this post, so as not to contaminate all Lizzo’s positive energy with the foul mouth of Jenna Ellis.

God help her soul, that’s all I will say. Cuz she’s going to hell unless she turns her life around.

Oh good!! Jenna Ellis, the Colorado attorney who represented former President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election, is under investigation by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel.

Okay, Lizzo. I’ve got this. Let’s turn the tables on this racist you-know-what. I won’t call her a bitch, because like you — having also been called one numerous times — being a ‘bitch’ can be a compliment. And being a ‘bad bitch’ is an even bigger compliment.

I am wondering what you would call Jenna Ellis with your gift for profanity — but the words popping into my mind won’t fly in your beautiful flute-playing story.

About Bitches

Lizzo tells Vanity Fair that after her twerking TED talk, she’s ready to do one on bitches.

“When I sing I’m 100 percent that bitch in ‘Truth Hurts,’ nobody ever finishes the sentence: I’m 100percent that bitch even when I’m crying crazy / I’ve got boy problems that’s the human in me. It’s the ‘crying crazy’ that’s [important]. Someone can make you think you didn’t hold yourself with respect, so when I say ‘I’m 100 percent that bitch,’ it’s like an affirmation. It’s a reminder of who you are. I wrote that song for people to sing it and do it for themselves. Do you remember when Missy Elliott and Da Brat took control over that word and empowered it? It’s a colloquialism now, a shout-out to Black women.”

About the Profanity

This Vanity Fair interview is the best. Lizzo is very close to her family and was brought up in a very religious home. Her mom explains that Lizzo never used any profanity. Knowing that her extensive use of profanity would upset members of her family, Lizzo prepared everybody with therapy sessions.

Is that not fantastic!!!!

Lizzo’s mother told Vanity Fair: “She was always a free spirit and didn’t like clothes, so that was not a surprise at all. She is doing what she loves to do, making her own decisions, and really helping people along the way. I’m so proud of her.”

Stay tuned for more on flute players. I will write part 2 promptly — although it may be the weekend. Lots is going on. ~ Anne