Lizzo says her job as someone who has a platform is to 'reshape history' —and says she did so by playing James Madison's 200-year-old flute

• Lizzo said it's her job as someone with a platform to "reshape history."
• She told Vanity Fair she did this by playing James Madison's 200-year-old flute at her concert.

As a major star with a large platform, Lizzo believes it's her duty to "reshape history."

She told Vanity Fair that part of her reshaping of history was playing James Madison's 200-year-old crystal flute from the Library of Congress at her Washington, DC, concert earlier this month.

"When people look back at the crystal flute, they're going to see me playing it," Lizzo told Vanity Fair. "They're going to see that it was owned by James Madison, but they're going to see how far we've had to come for someone like me to be playing it in the nation's capital, and I think that that's a cool thing."

"I don't want to leave history in the hands of people who uphold oppression and racism," she continued. "My job as someone who has a platform is to reshape history."

At her concert, Lizzo celebrated the historical moment.

"Bitch I just twerked and played James Madison's crystal flute from the 1800s!" Lizzo said on stage during her flute performance.

"We just made history tonight!" she shouted to the audience. "Thank you to the Library of Congress for preserving our history and making history freaking cool! History is freaking cool you guys!"

While plenty of people celebrated Lizzo's historical flute performance, several Republicans criticized the move, specifically the singer's twerking and choice of outfit during the performance.

"It's always been about white male supremacy in this country and the people who are complicit in helping uphold it," Lizzo said of the current state of affairs in the United States, including the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

"Black people have been dehumanized so much — especially Black women," she said. "The way Black women have been treated in this country has made me feel very hopeless. I don't think there was a time when [we] were treated fairly and with respect."