Lizzo flexes her rap skills on her surprise mixtape, My Face Hurts From Smiling, a project she feels has healed her depression. The mixtape, she tells Rolling Stone, was a spontaneous one inspired by the success of her freestyle to “Whim Whammie” by Pluto and YK Niece.
“The process for this mixtape has been honestly one of the most rewarding, fulfilling, exciting, and healing I’ve had in a long time as an artist and as a person,” Lizzo says. “It’s been the happiest two weeks I’ve had in such a long time, and I genuinely feel like it cured my depression. And you don’t realize you’re really depressed until you’re out of it, but I was like, ‘Oh, wait, I was really down bad. I needed this.’”
Working on the mixtape, Lizzo adds, reminded her of how it feels to have creative freedom, especially now that she’s a mainstream star signed to Atlantic Records.
“It felt really, really good and refreshing not being told what to do,” Lizzo says. “And a lot of times it’s out of protection for me, because I also am in a place now where there’s certain things I can’t post on the internet. There’s certain things I can’t say anymore. There’s certain things I can’t put on my TikTok, though I really want to. And that was really suffocating me because the only thing that brings me joy in this life is expressing myself.”
My Face Hurts From Smiling, Lizzo clarifies to Rolling Stone, is a different sound and vibe than what fans will hear on her upcoming album.
“The album that I’m putting out is two years of really constructed … my pop, rock, rap genre of music,” she says. “It’s a little moodier, it’s a little darker. It talks about the dark times.”
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