Lizzo has hit back at Azelia Banks’ suggestion that her music is tailored for a white audience, stating that she creates songs with ‘black and trans women’ in mind.
In September, Azealia accused the Juice singer of ‘making a fool of her black self for a white American public’ before deleting the Instagram comments.
Over the past couple of years, Lizzo has garnered mainstream success with songs like Juice, Good As Hell and Truth Hurts, the latter of which earned the singer her first number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100.
But Azealia isn’t the only one to have thrown criticism Lizzo’s way – she’s also been slammed for making watered down music and even being accused of being an ‘industry plant’.
While Lizzo, 31, acknowledges that her music appeals to all races, she insists it is written from a black woman’s perspective.
‘Yeah, there’s hella white people at my shows. What am I gonna do, turn them away? My music is for everybody,’ Lizzo hit back in an interview with Rolling Stone.
Defending herself, she continued: ‘As a black woman, I make music for people, from an experience that is from a black woman.
‘I’m making music that hopefully makes other people feel good and helps me discover self-love. That message I want to go directly to black women, big black women, black trans women. Period.’
Lizzo also vowed to continue blessing us with bangers and stated confidently: ‘We eventually get used to everything. So people just ‘gon have to get used to my a*s.’
It’s not only Lizzo’s music that has rubbed some people up the wrong way – she’s also been targeted for her weight.
Health and fitness guru Jillian Michaels came under fire for body-shaming Lizzo when she said: ‘It isn’t going to be awesome if she gets diabetes.’
Jillian later issued an apology and said: ‘As I’ve stated repeatedly, we are all beautiful, worthy, and equally deserving. I also feel strongly that we love ourselves enough to acknowledge there are serious health consequences that come with obesity – heart disease, diabetes, cancer to name only a few.
‘I would never wish these for ANYONE and I would hope we prioritize our health because we LOVE our bodies.’
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