Lizzo’s ‘Face Hurts From Smiling’ On New Mixtape

Since the release of her 2022 album Special, Lizzo has been working behind the scenes creating new music while putting in TV guest spots on The Mandalorian and The Simpsons. In March, the Grammy-winning hitmaker announced she had completed her next studio album, Love in Real Life, first teased with the single of the same name in February and “Still Bad” the next month.

While her next LP is coming down the pike, Lizzo is tiding fans over with another project in the meantime: My Face Hurts From Smiling, her first major-label mixtape since signing with Atlantic Records in 2016. Her Special album largely stuck to family-friendly empowerment anthems, but on the new mixtape, Lizzo shows she’s ready to party this summer with songs like “Yitty on Yo T*ttys (Freestyle),” “Gotcho B***h,” “Bend It Ova,” and “Droppin’ On It.”

To help turn up the fun, Lizzo brought along Doja Cat on “Still Can’t Fuh” and SZA on “IRL.” The latter marks the duo’s second collaboration after their 2023 remix of Lizzo’s “Special.” Last month, SZA brought out Lizzo to perform the song during the first L.A. stop of her and Kendrick Lamar’s Grand National Tour. After the “About Damn Time” singer announced My Face Hurts From Smiling’s forthcoming release earlier this week, SZA said on Instagram “I’m not kidding, this is actually the most fye mixtape ever,” according to Billboard.

Lizzo performed a one-off show in Los Angeles in March, her first in two years, which she said helped her get back on her feet. She told fans she’d been in “such a dark depression” before her return to the stage after taking her so-called “gap year” from the spotlight. “I was so heartbroken by the world, and so deeply hurt that I didn’t want to live anymore, and I was so deeply afraid of people that I didn’t want to be seen,” she said at the show, per Rolling Stone.

A release date for Love in Real Life has yet to be announced.