In addition to two recent singles, Lizzo is adding fuel to her comeback fire with some big film-related news: the musician will be taking up the guitar to portray integral rock 'n' roll innovator Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Rosetta, a new biopic in development at Amazon MGM Studios.
As Deadline reports, Lizzo is producing the film alongside Kevin Beisler, as well as Significant Productions' Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker. The screenplay is being written by Natalie Chaidez (The Flight Attendant, Queen of the South) and Kwynn Perry (Tigerbelles, The Burned Photo).
"Black people made rock n roll yeaaaah," Lizzo wrote beneath a screenshot of the announcement article, which she posted to her Instagram feed. That's an objectively true statement, and Tharpe's influence cannot be understated: remembered as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll," the musician born Rosetta Nubin was the first great recording artist of gospel music, gaining popularity in the 1930s and 1940s for bringing together spiritual lyricism and electric guitar with heavy distortion.
As per Deadline, the movie will centre around a "pivotal period" in Tharpe's life when she was preparing for the first-ever stadium show in music history thanks to her acclaimed guitar sound, while simultaneously "having to hide her love for another woman."
