“My Skin” by Lizzo
Learning to truly love oneself despite one’s flaws is never an easy task. We often choose to see what we dislike about our bodies instead of the positive things we can love about it. Furthermore, the color of our skin also plays a huge role in our self-love journey as social media usually portray a certain type of beauty.
In “My Skin”, Lizzo shares light on her “blackness” and self-love. This body positivity song also acts as a stand against racial discrimination.
We can easily change almost everything about our appearances except the color of our skin, the biggest organ in our bodies. More often than not, we are also judged by our skin color. Lizzo, however, chooses not to let that bring her down as her goal is to embrace her color.
She even goes on to celebrating her family and spreading her love to specifically her mum and sister, calling them “beautiful Black masterpiece!” It angers her, too, whenever she hears someone that looks like her ashamed of who they are. The songstress just wants people to embrace their beauty as it’s uniquely theirs.
“My Skin” also touches on how Lizzo is “done with the struggle”. In one interview, Lizzo shared how she was her skinniest at 21 years old, but people still didn’t think it was good enough. This ultimately led her to being done and wanting to enjoy life as it is.
My Personal Opinion
While it’s a beautiful thing to love yourself as you were created, one also has to make sure to lead a healthy lifestyle. This will prevent a ton of health issues in the future. You shouldn’t be changing yourself to fit another person’s mold but make the changes according to your own happiness.
While society sells unrealistic beauty goals to us, we ought to have a good sense of what our bodies can and cannot achieve. Love yourself, your skin color and most importantly, keep a healthy mind and body.
Lizzo Sheds some Light on “My Skin”
In October 2014, Lizzo took part in a project by StyleLikeU titled “What’s Underneath” where she was interviewed while stripping off pieces of clothing one after another down to her lingerie. Her answers to some of the questions formed the baseline of “My Skin”.
Another inspiration, a more solemn one, was of the shooting of African-American Jamar Clark. This took place down the street of her north Minneapolis home. Clark was handcuffed and, on the ground when he was shot by police officers on 15th November, 2015.
On 27th November 2015, the day the official music video was launched, Lizzo posted a hearty text surrounding her inspiration behind the song on her Facebook page. She began and ended the post with this powerful sentence:
Release Date of “My Skin”
“My Skin” was officially released through BGSW on the 18th November, 2015. It was the third and last single from Lizzo’s second album titled “Big Grrrl Small World”.
Credits
Lizzo shares co-writing credits for this song alongside Chicago-based music producer and songwriter, Stefon “Bionik” Taylor. He has also worked with many top artists, including the legendary Phil Collins. Besides co-writing “My Skin”, Bionik also produced it.
Lizzo’s “Big Grrrl Small World” Album
“Big Grrrl Small World” is the title of the second full-length studio album of Detroit-born singer, Lizzo. This record is a follow-up to her debut project “Lizzobangers”, released in 2013.
“Big Grrrl Small World”, a product of the singer’s personal label BGSW, was officially unveiled on December 11 of 2015. And it was supported by three earlier-released singles.
“Humanize” was the first single to be issued from this album. It has a release date of October 13 of 2015. “Ain’t I”, the second single, was issued a few days later on October 27. “My Skin”, the project’s last single, came out on November 18.
This project appeared on Spin’s compilation of “50 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2015”.
