Embracing a 'Big, Black Ass' at a 'Tiny, Tiny Ass Desk': Lizzo's Affective Performance of Choric Self-Love

This essay analyzes Lizzo's 2019 Tiny Desk Concert as an affective performance of call-and-response that provides insight into pleasurable transgressions of hegemonic boundaries to performatively spread love. Lizzo invites a transgression of these norms, eliciting a response from her physical a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWomen's studies quarterly Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 267 - 282
Main Author Mason, Myles W
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York The Feminist Press 01.04.2022
Feminist Press
Subjects
Artists
Audiences
Black people
Females
Happiness
Hegemony
Love
Music Activities
Musical performances
Women
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Summary:This essay analyzes Lizzo's 2019 Tiny Desk Concert as an affective performance of call-and-response that provides insight into pleasurable transgressions of hegemonic boundaries to performatively spread love. Lizzo invites a transgression of these norms, eliciting a response from her physical and digital audiences to embrace the fat, Black, feminine abject as a means of self-love. Turning to the Black communicative technique of calland- response, the essay illustrates the contours of the choric self-love Lizzo establishes with her audiences that transformatively reimagines a self-love that centers Black women's joy.
ISSN:0732-1562
1934-1520
1934-1520
DOI:10.1353/wsq.2022.0022