Lizzo took a trip to the Library of Congress this week to test out a number of historic flutes.
Ahead of her chance to play President John Madison’s crystal flute during her show at Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena, the superstar took a trip to the country’s national library, and she shared the visit Wednesday on TikTok. During the tour, she tried out the original Sousa piccolo, dusted off her memory to play “Stars and Stripes Forever” and also played a tiny instrument that she joked contained, “like, 500-year-old spit.”
Then came, as she narrated, “the moment of truth” to give President Madison’s crystal flute a trial run before her show. “No one in 200 years had ever heard this flute get played,” she explained. “So of course she had to twerk.” Later, she even took the post-Revolutionary War relic into the Library of Congress’ Great Hall and the Reading Room for a couple of truly stunning encores. “Music had never been played in this room before, y’all,” Lizzo said of the strictly quiet Reading Room.
Earlier this month, Lizzo took home her very first Emmy for Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, her Amazon Prime reality series, which, adding to her trio of Grammy Awards, officially gets the supertar halfway to EGOT status. She’s also partnering with HeadCount on her current tour to encourage fans to participate in the 2022 midterm election.
Watch more of Lizzo’s test run of the flutes in the Library of Congress below.
