“Hi, motherf***er, did you miss me?” Lizzo opens the show with the sing-song taunt of her 2022 song “The Sign”. Judging from the roar that subsequently fills the O2 Arena, the answer is clearly, yes. It’s the first time that the 34-year-old empowerment pop-soul sensation has headlined an arena tour in the UK but she’s familiar with this side of the pond. During her early years on the scene in the 2010s, Lizzo played in the country’s various bars and small venues. Smallest venues, even. “We went from getting f***ed up in the Travelodge to selling out the O2 twice!” she exclaims later.
Riding high from her Record of the Year win at last month’s Grammys – her fourth award in total – singer-cum-flautist-cum-twerk icon Lizzo (aka Melissa Jefferson) is closing out the European leg of the Special world tour, named after her acclaimed 2022 album. Lizzo’s mainstream breakthrough arrived in 2019 when a two-year-old song found new life thanks to the Netflix romcom Someone Great. “Truth Hurts” – and its now-iconic lyrics proclaiming to be “100 per cent that b****” – helped Lizzo’s status, together with her catalogue of self-love manifesto bops, rocket to stardom. She’s stayed there ever since.
