Accountability in Music • Page 689

Right. Totally!

 

It's extremely easy to believe that Beyonce personally, nor the few people who had heard Heated before release, knew about the very small news about Lizzo changing her lyrics before Renaissance came out.

 

It was picked up by virtually every news outlet. Here's GMA, the BBC, Glamour, New York Times, CNN and more:

Lizzo changes lyrics to new song 'Grrrls' after backlash over 'ableist slur'
Lizzo changes derogatory lyric after backlash
Lizzo Changes Lyrics to “Grrrls” After Criticism of Ableist Lyrics
Lizzo Explained Why She Changed "Grrrls" Song Lyrics
Lizzo Changed Her Song Lyrics in Response to Criticism, Like a Queen
Lizzo changes song lyric after social media backlash, ableism claims
Lizzo changed 'Grrrls' lyric after backlash | CNN
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/arts/music/lizzo-lyrics-grrrls.html

 

I legitimately don't think that matters, you think Beyonce sees every news article that is posted on major news articles? I highly doubt she is up to date with news the way that perpetually online people are. I mean, I only know about the Lizzo stuff because of these forums. The argument of "her team" telling her doesn't really work either because I am sure the number of people who heard her album ahead of release was in the single digits.

 

I think it would be interesting to see how this managed to happen, because I too assume that there should probably be someone with a quality control role, but there's probably not some Lyrics Tsar checking on this kind of thing right up to the release day, so I can see how it could have gone addressed after having previously gotten past that final edit or whatever.

 

Yeah I find it hard to believe that every single person in Beyonce's camp completely missed the Lizzo news. I'd imagine there are dozens of people that had involvement with the album that keep up with current music news & trends. I think it's more likely that they missed the lyric or read it & didn't think anything about it, since most of us who give a shit about accountability in the US are just finding out that it's a slur

 

I think some of you also overestimate how many people, even in "her camp," even heard the album before release day.

 

Take the L Steve

 

It was definitely a big story

 

No one needs the L. Ultimately Beyoncé obviously didn't do it maliciously, and she's fixing it, but it makes it seem worse given the Lizzo situation. Just an observation on my part!

 

I’m just roasting Steve. Definitely glad Beyoncé did the right thing

 

Y’all are so weird sometimes. She’s correcting her mistake. Clearly she didn’t hear the lizzo news. What more do you want?

 

I'll take the L, the L.O.V.E.

 

The only reason why i knew it was a slur was because i watched 7th Heaven, haha.

 

Talk about problematic

 

For all I know there’s a trillion songs that have that word in it but seems super ironic/ wild to me that two songs in like, 2-3 months both originally contained that word after personally (I think) never hearing that word in a song ever before.

Glad they both easily fixed the problem and didn’t choose to die on that foolish hill

 

Reading this immediately reminded me of this N.E.R.D. song https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaz_(song)

 

First ones that come to mind are FourFiveSeconds, and I Love Kanye.
And it looks like Kanye had a song on Graduation that featured it too. He was definitely called out by disability groups in the UK for FourFiveSeconds - but that's possible the McCartney connection.

 

…to discuss how it happened

 

The whole thing is ridiculous. The word has different definitions and was used properly by both Lizzo and Beyonce. The word spaz has been used in songs for a long time.

I don't recall anyone ever making a big deal about the word cigarette being used in music. Go look up what that word means in the UK because they also consider that to be a slur.

 

It’s pretty clear she didn’t hear the Lizzo news or else she wouldn’t have included it only to also be called out days after her album dropped.. it’s fixed now. She was held accountable. Idk the obsession to fixate on it is weird to me.

 

Given how long album cycles have become nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if the song wasn't in its final form before the Lizzo news...especially if it was an all American team working on it. In my eyes, they've taken steps to address it and are using it as a learning experience going forward for themselves and others since they're in such high profile positions.

 

idk it's like you didn't even read the posts about it...

It's an interesting an unexpected faux pas. Pretty weird to refer to less than a page's worth of people expressing curiosity as a "fixation" as if anyone is out of pocket (or even calling for further accountability).

 

I did read the posts but whatever I’m done going back and forth.