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Lizzo at eleventh Breakthrough Prize Ceremony

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Key Takeaways:

• Lizzo’s newest challenge channels her freestyle power right into a full-length mixtape.
• The challenge options first-time collaborations with Doja Cat and a reunion with SZA.
• Lizzo confirms the mixtape is a distinction to her forthcoming album, ‘Love in Real Life.’

In May, Lizzo dropped a freestyle over PLUTO’s “WHIM WHAMIEE,” and followers both beloved the change of tempo or didn’t know what hit them. Regardless of public opinion, the Houston-raised rapper bottled up that very same power and poured it straight into her surprise mixtape, MY FACE HURTS FROM SMILING, which arrived on Friday (June 27) at midnight.

“It’s a whole different type of b**ch that’s comin’,” she warns proper from the bounce on the opener, “CRASHOUT.” Throughout the observe, Lizzo absolutely embraces the second — a noticeable detour from the deeper themes normally discovered on her studio albums — as she raps about tequila photographs, metropolis women profitable and extra. From there, the challenge segues into her aforementioned viral freestyle, now repackaged as “YITTY ON YO TITTYS (FREESTYLE).”

Around the fifth observe, “STILL CANT FUH,” Lizzo introduces her first visitor on the tape: Doja Cat. It’s surprisingly their first official track collectively, and neither artist disappoints. The Special creator cleverly references web sensation Cookinwitkya in her verse, and at one level, the file even samples TikToker SheraSeven.

Later, on “IRL,” the singer musically reconnects with SZA for the primary time since 2023’s “Special (Remix).” There are different highlights too, like Lizzo exhibiting like to her H-Town roots with a Sauce Walka reference on “DITTO.” Listen to MY FACE HURTS FROM SMILING beneath.

“The process for this mixtape has been honestly one of the most rewarding, fulfilling, exciting and healing I’ve had in a long time as an artist and as a person,” Lizzo advised Rolling Stone in regards to the challenge. “It’s only been two weeks, but it’s been the happiest two weeks I’ve had in such a long time.”

While her rapping and freestyling won’t be for everybody, MY FACE HURTS FROM SMILING isn’t meant to interchange her fifth studio album. She confirmed to the publication that Love in Real Life would be the “complete opposite” of the mixtape, leaning into a number of the darker moments she’s been by way of. So far, she’s teased the LP with two singles — its title track and “Still Bad” — with one other, titled “B**ch,” anticipated to drop this fall.