Lizzo Wanted Her Album ‘Special’ to Not Have Any Features
Grammy-winning artist Lizzo is back with her fourth album Special, and she couldn’t feel more “Good As Hell” about it. When creating the album, Lizzo wanted to create a project that lived up to its name, and Special does just that, with the singer taking center stage as she shines without any featured guest stars.
Lizzo’s fourth album ‘Special’ follows her Grammy-winning LP ‘Cuz I Love You’
It’s a common Hollywood adage that it takes 10 years to become an overnight success, and no one knows that better than Lizzo. In fact, she acknowledges herself as a ten-year overnight success story. She first launched her music career a decade ago, but it wasn’t until 2019 with the explosion of her song “Truth Hurts” and her smash third album Cuz I Love You that the singer became a household name. She notched her first No. 1 hit with “Truth Hurts” and won three Grammy Awards thanks to Cuz I Love You.
Naturally, the pressure was on Lizzo to create an equally-as-amazing follow-up album. She spent much of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic locked up at home like everyone else, and began working hard to create something unforgettable.
The end product was Special, her first album in three years and first with no features since her 2015 album Big Grrrl Small World.
Lizzo admitted she was ‘a little greedy’ when recording ‘Special’
Lizzo stopped by The Breakfast Club to celebrate Special‘s release in July 2022. When asked if going solo on the project with no guest artists was intentional, Lizzo admitted that she wanted to grab the spotlight on her fourth album.
“Obviously there were people who I’m a fan of that I’ve sent songs to and everything and it didn’t work out,” she conceded, “but I do get a little greedy, where it’s like, ‘Man, I really just want to take this opportunity to show y’all what I can do.”
“It’s a classic, no-skip album with no features,” she said of the project. “I think I deserve to have that moment.”
She emphasized that she’s down to collaborate with other artists and they’re welcome on her future projects, but she put her foot down with Special and wanted to create an album that was as special as its title.
“I’ll be on everybody’s song; everybody’s gonna be on my song,” she said of future collabs. “But I wanted to have my moment. I wanted to make a statement with my music and show the world what kind of musician I am, because I’m a mu-sic-i-an, OK? I’m a song-writ-air, and I wanted to flex that and pimp my pen.”
Lizzo is proud of ‘Special’
After the success of Cuz I Love You, Lizzo fans were eager to hear more from the singer. The pandemic forced artists everywhere to adapt their recording and release schedules. For Lizzo, it was more about taking the time to ensure that what she released was up to her standard.
“I wanted to rush it so many times; there were so many points,” she told Zane Lowe in an Apple Music interview. She confessed that there were points when she thought she had the album and its singles completed, only for those tracks to not even make it on the project. “I’m just proud with how patient I was with myself and with my art, and I took the time to write the songs that need to come out. The stories that I wanted to share that people should hear.”
