An Oral History of Lizzo's Rise to Fame

It’s been a trip these past 10 months, watching Lizzo become everybody’s favorite pop star. Suddenly, you’re getting jostled by all the new arrivals on the bandwagon: Hey, we loved Lizzo first! And I take it personally whenever Billboard refers to her as a “Houston rapper.” 

To be fair to all of the towns claiming her—they should! I mean, we do, too. 

Lizzo was born Melissa Jefferson in Detroit, in 1988, before studying music—with a classical emphasis on flute—in Houston. She formed an experimental Denver rock band, Lizzo & the Larva Ink, while living with her mom there. She arrived in Minneapolis in 2011 as a fresh-faced 23-year-old and matriculated to L.A. sometime in 2016. And we’re obviously proud that Lizzo spent the life equivalent of a semester or two here. 

As an unrepentant homer, I’m probably not the most reliable historian of Lizzo’s rise. I’m just so happy to see her crushing it, whether it’s on MTV or at the Grammys, or in this new movie with J.Lo. I feel the same way when I’m lurking on Lizzo’s Instagram account, which makes her backstage life look like a kind of endlessly joyful adult summer camp. She’s everywhere now, and the only sad thing about seeing her everywhere else is that we see her less frequently here. (Her tour stops at the Armory on October 9 and 11.) 

I knew Lizzo from her earliest Minneapolis days. I met her in the backyard of a house party in Northeast, with a couple other rappers lounging on the lawn. It must have been her second or third month here. When I got my first proper introduction—and this is almost unbelievable to me now—she appeared quiet and lonely. The rapper Jeremy Nutzman had brought her along to a party I was throwing at my loft in the North Loop. I can still picture her sitting on the edge of a bed as an insane, smoked-out, psychedelic afterparty swirled around her. Of course, that image of Lizzo holds only because it’s so incongruous with the ebullient dynamo she has become. 

Within weeks, she had assumed the role of the funniest person in the room, or car, or bar. I was lucky enough to witness her precise mimicry of the Killer Mike rap on the track “Sea Legs” by Run the Jewels—recited for an audience of four, squeezed into the cab of a pickup truck. And I remember sitting with her on a couch in the green room of the Entry discussing Prince gematria—a kind of Kabbalistic numerology—the weekend he died.  

The oral history below does not represent a comprehensive account of Lizzo’s roughly five full years in Minneapolis. Rather, it’s a look at how the Lizzo at that little house party in 2011 became the massive Lizzo on the red carpet in 2019. 

Lizzo was too busy exchanging DMs with Rihanna to talk to me right now—it’s crazy, I never formally interviewed her. But I was able to interview some of the people who were closest to her when she passed through. What did they see in her? Could they see the Age of Lizzo coming? Think of this not as a comprehensive account, but as a celebration of the time when she was ours. 

And, whatever comes next for Lizzo, I’m pretty sure she will always enjoy being celebrated. 

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Shannon Blowtorch: DJ for GRRRL PRTY

BJ Burton: Mixer on Lizzobangers, producer of Big GRRRL Small World

Drew Christopherson: Drummer for Poliça and cofounder of Totally Gross National Product, the record label that released Lizzobangers

Claire de Lune: Singer in The Chalice

Sophia Eris: (Her government name is “Lauren.”) Rapper in The Chalice and GRRRL PRTY, and Lizzo’s DJ and best friend

Har Mar Superstar: Musical superstar

Jake Heinitz: Publisher of Greenroom Magazine

Aaron “Lazerbeak” Mader: Doomtree’s beatmaker, lead producer of Lizzobangers

Claire “Manchita” Monesterio: Rapper in GRRRL PRTY

Ryan Olson: Marijuana Deathsquads, Poliça, Gayngs; cofounder of TGNP, and executive producer of Lizzobangers

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In 2011, Lizzo crash lands in the Minneapolis music scene from Denver, Colorado, where she had been living with her mom. She couch surfs for a while, and starts popping up on local mixtapes. Nobody can recall Lizzo working a straight job, at least not for very long: Manchita says she worked as a host, “very short-term,” at McCormick & Schmick’s, in Edina. One of her first musical projects in town, The Chalice, gains immediate traction. 

Claire “Manchita” Monesterio: I was making songs with 2% Muck and Spyder Baybie Rawdog [Jeremy Nutzman, now performing as Velvet Negroni]. We had done this song called “Rugged and Raw.” It was me and Jeremy and there was room for a third verse. One day Muck was like, “I found this girl rapper. She’s amazing. You’re going to love her.” I heard the track before I met her and I was like, “Holy fuck. Who is this?”

Jake Heinitz: I think one of her first [performances] was the Red Stag Block Party with Tha Clerb: Jeremy Nutzman, Lizzo, Mike Mictlan, Manchita, and 2% Muck. 

Sophia Eris: Jeremy was dating my roommate at the time, and he had known Lizzo from Larva Ink. I met her at the Red Stag Block Party in 2011. We got wasted and walked over to karaoke and sang Beyoncé and have been buds ever since.

Ryan Olson: Jeremy told me I should throw down with Lizzo. And one of the first things she did in town was feature on the Tamper, Disable, Destroy Marijuana Deathsquads mixtape. She’s the first voice you hear. 

Sophia Eris: I played her the one song I had, and she’s like, “Ohmygod, this is dope! Let me sing backup for you.” I was like, really? She’s like “Yeah it’s dope!” I’m like, “Your shit’s dope!” Then we had a party one night, and Claire de Lune was over there and I had some beats, and Claire started writing and Lizzo started writing. 

Claire de Lune: Lauren [stage name: Sophia Eris] was living in Uptown. She was really close to Icehouse, like West 26th and Pleasant. So we would all just hang out there after hours. They had been starting to try and work on music together. But Lizzo had only been in town for a couple of months. Then, they had a song that they were working on that they hadn’t written a chorus for. They were like, “Hey, do you want to take a crack at this chorus?”

Sophia Eris: That was The Chalice song “Push It.” And everything happened after that. We uploaded one rusty-ass recording on SoundCloud. Andrea Swensson asked if she could play it on her “Ladies First” segment on the Local Show. 

Claire de Lune: The Current just decided they were going to throw their power behind us. At that point, we were like “Oh, we should make some more songs together and see where this goes.” We played a show at the Kitty Cat Klub, we played at Honey, and then we got booked to open for Iggy Azalea at the Fine Line. We didn’t even meet her. She didn’t give a fuck.

•••••

“Push It,” the first song The Chalice ever wrote, gets immediate airplay on The Current in the winter of 2011–12. By spring, they’re playing SXSW; by the fall, they have a new EP, We Are The Chalice.

Claire de Lune: I think for a long time, Minneapolis hip-hop was pretty serious. It was very conscious and very backpack rappy. And we were just fun. We sang songs about going out and getting your nails done and partying. We did choreography; we had matching outfits.

Sophia Eris: The Current asked us to go on an in-studio interview, and they were like, “When are you guys going to drop your album?” and Claire’s like, “In the fall.” And none of us talked about it. She just said that shit on air. That was in May, so we had to make an album by the fall! 

Jake Heinitz: I think the first Chalice show was where I met Quinn [Wilson], who I dated for five years. Quinn was an MCAD grad who became Lizzo’s makeup artist. Back then they didn’t even realize that they were cousins through marriage. And then Quinn became her creative director and still is.

Claire de Lune: It just went from 0 to 100 really fast. We had booked shows and we didn’t have a set, so we had to start writing songs to play. None of us were popping. Lizzo had just moved there a few months prior. Lauren had never played a show before The Chalice. Three months after our first show, we were playing SXSW. 

Sophia Eris: We met every week, and our meetings turned into three-hour arguments. Claire and Lizzo were like stars—they had all this power between them and they butted their heads the most. Every experience with The Chalice was a lot of firsts for me. But they knew what they were, knew their sound, knew what was going on. I was faking it to make it.

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While The Chalice is having a moment, Lizzo feels creatively restless. By the winter of 2012–13, she has resolved to record her first solo project.  

Lazerbeak: I had put out Lava Bangers, which was my instrumental rap beat tape—stuff laying around that Doomtree had never written to. And Lizzo somehow heard that. She tweeted, “Man! I wish I could afford a Lazerbeak beat.”

Ryan Olson: I saw that Twitter exchange and I was like, “I’ll fucking help you guys do this.” And we basically ended up doing it up in my bedroom.

Lazerbeak: I just wrote her back, something to the effect of, “It doesn’t cost that much. If you can hook up a six-pack of Mike’s Hard...” or something. 

Bj Burton: Beak was into these really sugary drinks, so once a month we would stay up all night and work on Lizzobangers. We’d also do pizza races where we’d call like three different pizza deliveries and see which one would get there first. 

Lazerbeak: We would walk from Ryan’s place to that liquor store on University that’s since burned down. That was where I was getting my fruity drinks. I think I had a kid then already, so it was a special thing for me to get a night off and sleep over and party. We’d call them “overnights.”

Ryan Olson: A lot of it was talking about [Lizzo’s] dad. I’m not sure how long it had been [since he’d died], but relatively recent. She had a really strong sense of what she wanted to pull off. What she was musically leaning towards. Very opinionated in cool ways. Very productive. There was no clashing of ideas. 

Bj Burton: She’s like a crazy freestylin’ entertainer. She’s the most charismatic person I’ve ever met. 

Lazerbeak: BJ was living there, and he ended up mixing the album in Ryan’s bedroom. Amazing. I don’t think he had really mixed rap in a while.

Ryan Olson: I remember chopping up the beat and leaving a space open for Lauren to come through on “Batches & Cookies.” I was like, Really, you want to put a feature on this? It’s pretty cool. You have no features on the album, it’s all you. And then Lauren came through and slayed it.

Drew Christopherson: Ryan kept insisting, “We got to put a record out.” And I was always like, “Really? We do?” Because all I was seeing was The Chalice and I didn’t want Totally Gross [Christopherson’s label] within 10 feet of that. But I wasn’t at the shows at that time to see that [Lizzo] had an incredible voice and a good taste for songwriting, which are two traits she still has.

•••••

That fall of 2012, The Chalice wins the “Picked to Click” local critics’ poll in City Pages. Later that winter, KARE 11 features The Chalice in a segment on Minnesota’s music scene, past, present, and future. Prince happens to be watching his local TV news. 

Claire de Lune: Lizzo was back in Denver with her family, but Lauren and I went to a friend’s house to watch it on TV, because neither Lauren nor I had cable. We were so excited. So we went out to celebrate. We’re at the Dakota and I get a DM from Andrea Swensson in all caps; it’s like, “OMG, PRINCE’S PEOPLE ARE ASKING ME ABOUT YOU.” 

Sophia Eris: Prince invited us to Paisley Park on Easter Sunday 2013.

Claire de Lune: The weirdest part about this whole story is that Prince watches KARE 11. He was like, “Bring those girls to me.” They asked us to be there at 7 pm. I think that they only schedule things at 7 am or pm. Everything was seven—all of it. Getting paid in sevens, it was bizarre.

Sophia Eris: We got there at 6:45. Early. Got to the gate, we’re like, “Hi, we’re The Chalice.” Security’s like, “The gate will open at 7.” Like some Willy Wonka shit. 

Claire Delune: I guess we go get coffee. We were so inappropriately dressed to be at a Caribou Coffee in Chanhassen at 6 pm on a Sunday. Someone was wearing a feather boa; it was ridiculous.

Sophia Eris: We went in and this dude Josh was there. He was the producer, and he was like, all right, this is a song off the 3RDEYEGIRL [track] “BOYTROUBLE.” Played us the song, and he’s like, “We want you to make the song your own.” So they took all the vocals out and we wrote all those 16s. We had to write and record it in three hours.

Claire de Lune: Josh leaves. “I’ll be right back.” And in that time, Lauren somehow manages to knock over her coffee on the floor. And I was like, “Lauren, I will murder you if you get us kicked out of Paisley, oh my God.” She’s rubbing it into the carpet, and I look up, and the white guitar with the swirl is just hanging on the wall behind her.

Sophia Eris: There was a like a house phone in the studio—and it kept ringing. And it was like, “Hello? Yeah, they just started.” “Hello? Yeah, they’re halfway done.” “Hello? Yes, do you want to hear it?” And he held the phone up to the speaker and was like, “You like it?” Pause. “Okay, I’ll see you soon.” And we’re like, is that him? “Yes.” Is he coming? “Not today.” 

•••••

The Chalice breaks up as Lizzo’s solo recording Lizzobangers blows up, with The Current pushing the new single “Batches & Cookies.” Har Mar Superstar, then based in New York, is looking for an opening act for his tour. 

Har Mar Superstar: I think earlier on the Bye Bye 17 tour, we brought The Chalice out for some Midwestern states. At least Minneapolis and Chicago, and something else. I knew Lizzo had a record coming out, and there was a rumor that The Chalice was not going to be a thing. 

Claire de Lune: I think [The Chalice] all sort of realized we would have rather been doing something else.

Ryan Olson: Yeah, she went on a tour with Poliça. She toured with Deathsquads. We played Subterranean in Chicago, I remember. She opened and then sat in with Squads. She’s played with Squads a handful of times. Screams her ass off, and she can rap, sing, and tweak her voice out. She’s musical as hell. 

Lazerbeak: We were main support for a Poliça run. We played a sold-out Metro [a club in Chicago], which was awesome, just me and her driving around, listening to the entire Drake discography. Every day we’d stop at a Target and buy a different Drake album, and sing along to that for the six-hour drive.

Har Mar Superstar: We did like a whole U.S. tour, and a U.K. tour together. She came up to New York for a week before the tour to rehearse, and I was living in a little one-bedroom with an office within a house in Williamsburg. And she was such a trooper about it. I was like, “Well you can stay with me, but you can have the bed, and I’m going to curl up on this little thing that like fits two-thirds of my body.”

Sophia Eris: Lizzo and I started making music on our own because the vibe wasn’t there with The Chalice. We broke up, but we were booked to play the grandstand at the State Fair with The Current for our last show. Prince actually wanted to manage me and Lizzo after that. That was right when Lizzo got asked to tour with Har Mar. We were like, We can’t right now. We have to go on tour. But when we got back it was just different. The opportunity wasn’t there. It’s something I think about a lot. 

Har Mar Superstar: I was still touring really frugally. She got paid as an opener and I paid her to be in the band—same share the other band members got. So she could afford to rent a car. And then she and Sophia could do their own thing when they wanted to, and we could roll in the minivan.

Jake Heinitz: I think I go back to those Har Mar tours as being very pivotal because, at that point, she wasn’t busting through your door like, “Look at me, I’m Lizzo.” She learned how to be that. 

Har Mar Superstar: They were just ferocious onstage already. Even when it was just her and Sophia DJing. They just had it, you know what I mean? People fucking love them. They pump up the crowd. Just kind of in your face, undeniable: I’m going to tell you what the fuck I think, and you’re going to agree with me. It’s like, “Whoa! Yes, I do. I’m with you!” We all knew she’s going to just destroy large crowds forever.

•••••

In 2013, Lizzo wins Picked to Click as a solo artist, but spends much of the year working with GRRRL PRTY, a pro-women, anti-vowel riot grrrl rap collective with Sophia Eris, Claire “Manchita” Monesterio, and DJ Shannon Blowtorch.  

Sophia Eris: We wanted to rap with Manchita so bad for the longest time. Lizzo and I were hanging out and had her come over, and we just wrote “Wegula” together. And it was an actual experience we had at White Castle at 2 am. And that was our first single. 

Claire “Manchita” Monesterio: January [2013] is when my house burned down, and that’s when we really started leaning towards GRRRL PRTY. I think that we dropped “Wegula” in June or July, on that black-and-white YouTube series Lights in the Backdrop. That generated a lot of buzz and momentum, so by September, we had booked Icehouse [the Nicollet Avenue venue] for a residency for five months.

Sophia Eris: We did different genres. The first one was Aby Wolf and Ashley Gold. The next one was all hip-hop, like Psalm One and The Lioness. Then we did all rock bands. And Dessa hosted the finale. 

Claire “Manchita” Monesterio: We would jump rope, do jumping jacks, and rap, and sing harmonies, and do our stretches together. And then we would practice our stage blocking and choreography. We called it “boot camp.” It’s a sisterhood, you know what I mean? There’s just a different sense of camaraderie and comfort, writing with other women. You get a different energy, like my lyrics are more aggressive, more confident.

Shannon Blowtorch: Lizzo was really good at coaching in general, and getting really technically specific. You could tell she went to music school. I don’t write music, so I don’t necessarily speak in those terms. But she’d be like, “Oh, it’s this key.”

Claire “Manchita” Monesterio: I think as Lizzo’s solo stuff started to ramp up, and we were sharing a manager with GRRRL PRTY, things started to get tricky with scheduling. I think she was feeling a sense of guilt. There was definitely a pre- preemptive-departure sadness. When we went out to New York and did shows, she came back from a meeting and it was like, “I’m going to sign to Virgin.” She was sad, because she felt like it meant she was going to leave us.

•••••

In 2014, Lizzo signs with Thirty Tigers, in Nashville and New York, whose roster includes Low and Hippo Campus. And she finishes the Lizzobangers album cycle with her network television debut on The Late Show With David Letterman. She begins work on her follow-up album, Big GRRRL Small World, with BJ Burton at Bon Iver’s Wisconsin studio, April Base.

Lazerbeak: I remember me and her new manager talking on the phone constantly. Like, “How are we going to do this? How are we going to roll it out?” Because at that point, [Lizzo] was into the Twin Cities indie-rock scene. So, a bunch of white guys love her, and there’s no connection whatsoever to the black community or anything outside of our white-guy bubble. 

Drew Christopherson: When we were promoting Lizzobangers through [then-manager] Geoff [Harrison], we were working with trying to get her on Letterman. Because we needed to book her there. And we landed her the performance before anyone knew who she was.

Lazerbeak: I had to flex when the Letterman thing happened, ’cause it wasn’t like I was part of that. I had to be like, “Uh, I’m fucking going to Letterman.” Like, this is the only way my family will understand I’m doing something important. I’ll pay for my ticket, but I’m going to be there.

Drew Christopherson: I remember the very end of it, when [Letterman is] walking up to her, she just kind of storms over and just wraps her arms around him, almost takes him down. You don’t see that level of exuberance very often.

•••••

In 2015, Lizzo self-releases Big GRRRL Small World, which showcases her ability to both sing and rap. The album comes out against the backdrop of the Minneapolis police shooting of Jamar Clark and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. And its message combines self love and body positivity with a call for racial justice. She tells Vice, “This is a summoning of bodies: all shapes, sizes, and shades to unite in their pride, and wear their skin like the gift it is.” Her touring act introduces her audience to the Big GRRRLS, dancers Grace Holden and Courtney Hollinquest. The Big GRRRLS and Sophia Eris back Lizzo as she performs “Ain’t I” on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. 

Lazerbeak: I think any time there’s representation, it goes a long way. If you’re a kid, and you see that this woman is crushing it, and she’s getting written about—that’s going to make you feel like, “Oh fuck, I can actually do that.” And her talking about this stuff, and being open about social stuff, and body image stuff—I think that sparked a lot of necessary conversation here.

Sophia Eris: Everything that Lizzo’s doing is the point. I moved here to be A&R [in the music industry], and it was so I could find the artist that would change the world. That was the mission in my head. I feel like instead of A&R-ing, I found Lizzo as a DJ. And I get to be there from point A to point B with her. 

•••••

In 2016, Lizzo lands a (short-lived) MTV talk show, Wonderland. It’s enough to justify a part-time move to L.A., where she begins work on her debut major-label EP, Coconut Oil, with star producer Ricky Reed. She lands a touring slot opening for riot grrrl legends Sleater-Kinney. Soon, Lizzo is spending less and less time in Minneapolis. But when Prince dies in April, she flies back to sing “The Beautiful Ones” at his memorial street party on 7th Street. 

Drew Christopherson: It was Corin Tucker’s husband, Lance Bangs, who told Sleater-Kinney, “You gotta invite Lizzo onto this tour.”

Jake Heinitz: I was talking to Matthew Morgan the other day, from William Morris. He said when she got the Sleater-Kinney opening slot, “That was when I called Ricky Reed and told him, ‘You need to go see her.’” 

Claire “Manchita” Monesterio: Lizzo coming through this area upped everyone’s caliber. I was always telling her, “You have a direct channel to God. To the fucking life force.” I don’t want to say I’m proud of her, because it’s not anything I did. She’s accomplishing her actual legitimate dreams. 

Drew Christopherson: I think it really helped that a community became such a big fan. It allowed her to feel important and special and loved. Because for a little while it is true that I don’t think her own self-worth was there. I can’t get inside her head. This is obviously pure speculation because we’ll never know that answer. But there’s really no telling if she would’ve found her voice somewhere else.

Sophia Eris: I love Lizzo. She’s my best friend. So I’m gonna be there. 

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The Year of Lizzo

How did Lizzo become a breakout star in 2019? A killer album, a giant inflatable booty, and a buddy called Sasha Flute. 

January 4: Lizzo drops “Juice,” the first single off her upcoming Cuz I Love You. 

January 29: Lizzo performs “Juice” for the first time on television for Ellen and whips out Sasha Flute near the end of the song. 

February 5: Lizzo becomes a human disco ball singing “Juice” on The Tonight Show. 

April 14: Lizzo perseveres through sound problems at Coachella. 

April 19: Lizzo drops her major-label debut album Cuz I Love You, on Atlantic Records. 

May 6: Lizzo wears a custom Marc Jacobs coat made of a trillion pink feathers to the Met Gala. 

June 23: Lizzo performs “Truth Hurts” in a wedding dress on the BET Awards.

July 26: Lizzo drops “Tempo,” a collab with Missy Elliott, as the second single off Cuz I Love You.

August 26: Lizzo sings a medley of “Truth Hurts” and “Good as Hell” in front of a giant inflatable booty at the VMAs.

September 3: “Truth Hurts,” a song originally released in 2017, climbs to #1 on the Hot 100. 

September 13: Lizzo makes her movie debut in the J.Lo vehicle Hustlers.