Lizzo

“When I was 19, I joined a rock band, and that's when I began to say, 'Okay, this is something that I could take seriously.' When I came to Minneapolis, it just refined everything.”

“I enjoy female rappers, not because they're female but because I can connect to them more.”

“I was raised on gospel. I remember hip-hop and rock music were secular, so basically, for my first ten years living in Detroit, I was on gospel. But when I moved to Houston, that's when I got to open up my musical horizons.”

“Seeing people catch a feeling in their spirit and sprint the aisles of the church while my cousins played driving, uplifting gospel stuck with me. I let that same feeling wash over me when I experience and perform music.”

“I was so moved by music that I wanted to create it as well, but once you decide that's what you want to do with your life, to be successful, you have to be business-minded, too.”

“First Avenue is one of my favorite places to play. All along, they've treated me with respect.”

“I like that I'm not typical. I like that I'm called 'no-genre hip-hop.'”

“I work on myself daily to be a better person. When I react in a negative way to somebody, I sit back and think about why I did it, so I'm always working on myself, and my music is the same.”

“I love kimonos because you can just throw them on over anything. Ever since I got my first kimono from Lane Bryant in high school and thought, 'This is amazing; I can wear it with everything!'”

“Every time I rap about being a big girl in a small world, it's doing a couple things: it's empowering my self-awareness, my body image, and it's also making the statement that we are all bigger than this; we're a part of something bigger than this, and we should live in each moment knowing that.”