Lizzo’s Black, Female, and Fat Resistance

Abstract

Lizzo is the stage name of Melissa Viviane Jefferson, a fat Black musician and performer who soared to popularity in 2019 with the release of her third studio album Cuz I Love You. In this book, Niya Pickett Miller and Gheni N. Platenburg investigated the 7-month period between April and November 2019 with the intent of analyzing how the artist’s Instagram posts and media coverage of her weight could be used to broaden understanding of fatness, femaleness and Blackness and the intersections of the three. In the authors’ own words,