Less than a week after getting her own star on the wall of First Avenue in her former hometown, Lizzo has announced a different kind of starring role in Hollywood.
The ex-Minnesotan hip-hop and R&B singer/rapper is going to play one of rock ‘n’ roll’s earliest pioneers and most groundbreaking women, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, in a new biopic for Amazon MGM Studios. Simply titled “Rosetta,” the film counts Lizzo as one of its producers alongside Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker.
“Black people made rock n roll yeaaaah,” Lizzo wrote in a social media post announcing the film project.
Variety magazine further reported that the movie is being written by two established women filmmakers, Natalie Chaidez (“The Flight Attendant”) and Kwynn Perry (“Tigerbelles”). An early description of it says the movie “captures a pivotal period in her life — one of groundbreaking innovation, defiant passion, and secret love. As she shatters musical boundaries with her signature guitar sound, Rosetta must navigate societal constraints, conceal her love for another woman, and ultimately transform a wedding into one of the most legendary concerts in history — the first stadium show.”
This will be Lizzo’s second movie role following a small acting gig in 2019’s “Hustlers,” plus she also appeared in one episode of the “Star Wars” TV series “The Mandalorian.”
Lizzo showed she’s already ready for one big facet of portraying Tharpe at her First Avenue underplay gig last week: She played a guitar through the first three songs of her set.
Popular in the 1930s-‘50s, Tharpe was as known for her guitar skills as much as her singing, helping meld Southern gospel music into the newfangled hybrid music that would become known as rock ‘n’ roll. She was a big influence on early rock purveyors such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard and, of course, Elvis Presley. British soul singer Yola portrayed her in Baz Luhrmann’s 2022 biopic “Elvis.”
Before Lizzo, Tharpe’s still-rippling impact on modern music could be felt in the Twin Cities everywhere from Park Square Theatre (where Sounds of Blackness vet Jamecia Bennett portrayed her in the play “Marie and Rosetta”) to shows by alt-twangers the Jayhawks (who recorded and often performed Tharpe’s staple “Up Above My Head”).
