Ask Lizzo what kind of boys she likes and she'll bring out a list. The big boys and the itty-bitty boys? She likes them. Mississippi boys, inner-city boys, playboys, and gay boys? She wants them all. She doesn't discriminate.
Related | Lizzo's 'Water Me' is a Body Positive Anthem For Black Femmes
"From this black girl to the world, I want you to identify with my story no matter what you like in yo' holes," she explains with the casually vulgar flourish we've come to expect from the Minneapolis rapper. "I want people to feel free, I want people to have fun, I want these boys to know that you could be my next victim... if you play your cards right."
On her latest single "Boys," which feels like the spiritual companion to Charli XCX's earworm track of the same name, Lizzo does what she does best: gets equal parts filthy and feminist, letting all the boys know she doesn't need them while luring them in with a deliciously pop-heavy chorus.
Taken from the period when she created the masterful Coconut Oil EP nearly three years ago, "Boys" feels remarkably fresh --a fitting clapback to any stragglers who still feel women can't express sexuality and lust. It was in that headspace that Lizzo was in full "playa playa" mode. "I was just spitting hella game in this song," she says, "I think women are different now, we want to talk our shit too! And for a woman to sing a song that Rick James would sing in 2018 is necessary."
Photography: Quinn Wilson
While the eponymous rapper might be long gone, Lizzo seems more than capable of becoming the new super freak on the scene. In her accompanying visual for "Boys," the musician dances in front of the famous Minneapolis music note wall that Prince immortalized in 1977, gets down in the boy's bathroom with her squad of bad bitches, and lays bare on a scattering of flower petals -- all ingredients for another iconic video from the rapper.
Watch the exclusive premiere of Lizzo's latest single "Boys" below.
