Lizzo, who’s toting eight shiny Grammy nominations with her as she heads into 2020, is Time’s 2019 Entertainer of the Year.
The ‘Truth Hurts’ singer’s honour came in one of four subcategories under 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg’s selection as the youngest-ever Person of the Year. This year’s choices are different from Time’s traditional practice of a winner and runners-up.
For more than 90 years, the magazine has selected the “the man, woman, group or concept” — OK, for most of those years it was the man of the year — that has been the most influential over the last 12 months. This time, the subcategory selections are the people who “dominated” their fields, rather than the runners-up.
“ARE ... YOU ... NOT ... ENTERTAINED?!?” Lizzo tweeted Wednesday morning with a cover from the magazine, echoing Russell Crowe’s angry ‘Gladiator’ line but accenting it with a joyful starry-eyes emoji instead of rage.
“Lizzo is the rare feel-good story in the music business: Six years after her first album, steadily winning over audiences with empowering, musically dexterous records celebrating her black skin and ample curves, she has finally cracked the zeitgeist,” The Los Angeles Times’ Gerrick D Kennedy said in his review of one of her October shows at the Palladium.
The 31-year-old, born Melissa Jefferson, joked to Time in a video interview that the thing she was most excited about in 2019 was the Popeye’s chicken sandwich. Then she dissolved into a hearty chuckle.
“I’m just kidding. I didn’t eat the Popeye’s chicken sandwich. I was so excited about all the women in 2019,” she said.
“Being a black woman is popping, but right now in mainstream culture we’re finally getting a little more respect and getting our due,” she said. “I’ve always been singing about the same [things]. I just think that people were ready to hear it and they’re also ready to receive it from someone like me.”
While her ubiquitous hit ‘Good as Hell’ came out in 2016, Lizzo’s dominance in 2019 comes on the back of ‘Cuz I Love You’, her third album. She’s up against Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X, among others, for best new artist, weirdly enough at January’s Grammy ceremony. ‘Truth Hurts’ is up for song, record and pop performance of the year.
Lizzo is a proud champion of people loving their bodies, and she shares pictures of her own online frequently.
