It’s a good week to be Lizzo. After shutting down the stage at Coachella, the twerk team MVP is serving up another helping of self-love-laced music. The “Juice” singer’s third album Cuz I Love You is now available to stream today.
Lizzo announced her excitement about the project’s release on her Instagram page.
“3 YEARS HAVE BEEN LEADING UP TO THIS MOMENT RIGHT HERE. IM CRYIN…. CUZ I LOVE YOU,” she wrote in the caption of a nude picture that mirrored the album’s cover.
“This is my dream. To play to you all, to sing, to emote, to share my journey. We gon’ have church, we will sweat, there will be glitter,” she wrote in a caption, describing the album’s sound to fans.
The follow up to 2016’s Coconut Oil is less buoyant, but is just as uplifting as its predecessor. Lizzo’s firmer tone reflects a growing trust between the singer and her devoted fanbase.
Before she was inviting them inside her “church with a twerk,” and now she’s just leaving the door cracked, allowing her confidence to waft through. Larger production propels her consistent themes further than ever before.
“When all the dust has settled, I’m going to still be doing this. I’m not going to suddenly change. I’m going to still be telling my life story through music. And if that’s body positive to you, amen. That’s feminist to you, amen. If that’s pro-black to you, amen. Because ma’am, I’m all of those things,” she told Allure.
The content on the album reflects a dialogue not just with listeners, but also with Black women. Lizzo isn’t just inspiring them, she is praising them. She shouts out Lauryn Hill and Serena Williams for their excellence on “Like A Girl.”
Lizzo is heralded as a welcome representative of body positive and feminist movements that have previously centered on thinner, whiter, and richer women. Some worry that interest in bodies and voices like hers mark a trend and not a transition. Lizzo doesn’t share these concerns. She routinely rejects people’s comments about how “brave,” she is for loving herself.
“Before the term ‘body positive’ was kind of like this mainstream thing, I was just making music about my body that was positive,” she told Trevor Noah on The Daily Show.
Cuz I Love You is now available.