American singer, Beyonce, has confirmed that she will remove a lyric widely regarded as an ableist slur from her latest album, ‘Renaissance’
The song ‘Heated’ co-written by Drake, contains the lyric ‘spaz’ which fellow singer, Lizzo, was also forced to change in her song ‘Girrrls’
Beyonce sang the line ‘Spazzin’ on that ass, spazz on that ass’ prompting backlash on social media.
Although the word ‘spaz’ is used to mean ‘freaking out’ or ‘going crazy,’ it is derived from spastic, a demeaning word used to describe people living with Cerebral Palsy.
Her representatives confirmed to CNN that the word will be removed, stressing that it was ‘not used intentionally in a harmful way.’
Lizzo made a similar statement regarding the lyric a month ago.
She tweeted: ‘Let me make one thing clear: I never want to promote derogatory language. As a fat black woman in America, I’ve had so many hurtful words used against me so I understand the power words can have (whether intentionally or in my case unintentionally)”
‘I’m proud to say there’s a new version of GRRRLS with a lyric change.’
