What Makes a Black Woman Real?
In the music video for “Rumors,” released last month, two of music’s most controversial figures cast themselves as goddesses but speak candidly about the joys and challenges of being Black women in unruly bodies here on Earth. Decked in gold all the way to her press-on nails, the singer Lizzo addresses the people who have taken umbrage at her confidence as a fat Black woman. Cardi B, then visibly pregnant with her second child, perches atop a throne, her torso uncovered but for a custom-made gold breastplate. “All the rumors are true, yeah / Fake ass, fake boobs, yeah / Made a million at Sue’s, yeah,” she raps, a reference to the now-defunct strip club where she danced before finding fame as a reality-TV personality and later as a rapper.
On its face, “Rumors” is a catchy and self-deprecating callout of haters. But the song is also about the impossibility of navigating the music industry—and the world—as Black women who are either too fat or too pregnant or too fake to be valued. Both women face constant commentary on their bodies and what they choose to do with them: To hear their critics tell it, Lizzo promotes obesity by simply existing in public; Cardi is a bad mother because she bares her surgically enhanced breasts, even while pregnant.
