Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Republicans spiral after Lizzo made history when she performed with a 200-year-old flute once owned by US president James Madison at the Washington D.C. stop of her ‘The Special Tour.’ (Read More Here).
The flute was gifted to Madison in 1813 and has been maintained by the Library of Congress. Some believe Dolley Madison, the first lady, saved the flute along with a famous portrait of George Washington, the first president, before British troops burned the White House in 1814.
More than 200 years later, Lizzo, who was born Melissa Jefferson, put the flute back in the spotlight. By Thursday, a video of her playing Madison’s flute had been liked more than 350,000 times on Instagram.
The day before her concert, Lizzo was invited to the Library of Congress to explore its flute collection – it has nearly 2,000 of them – and to try out some of the instruments, including Madison’s flute.
To a small audience of staff members, she played a piece in the library Great Hall. She later posted a video of her performance on her Instagram account.
“She is amazingly talented,” Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, curator for the Library of Congress flute collection, told the Washington Post. “It was one happy afternoon watching her enjoy and love being at the library and Great Hall.”
A classically trained flautist, Lizzo has used her own instrument, named Sasha Flute, at concerts, often twerking while playing.
In a video posted to Instagram, Sasha Flute “narrated” a video of Lizzo trying out instruments from the Library of Congress collection.
A French fluter made the ornate instrument in 1813 specifically for Madison in honor of his second inauguration, according to the Library of Congress. It says it’s possible that the flute was one of a handful of valuables that former first lady Dolley Madison took with her from the White House as she fled just before British troops set fire to Washington, D.C., in 1814.
So how did it make its way onto the Capital One Arena stage and into the hands of the chart-topping artist? With a lot of security, is the short answer.
Here’s the longer version. The flute is among the more than 1,800 flutes that now live in the Library of Congress, which has the largest such collection in the world, according to Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress (a position nominated by the U.S. president and confirmed by the Senate). Notably, Hayden is the first woman and first African American to hold the title.
On Friday, Hayden tagged Lizzo in a tweet showcasing some of Library’s flutes — including Madison’s — and inviting her “to come see it and even play a couple when you are in D.C. next week.”
Ben Shapiro wrote: “Again, I am correct. Lizzo’s performance wearing actual clothing in the Library of Congress was delightful! Twerking with pieces of American history is, however, degrading and vulgarizing — and that’s the clip the media celebrated.”
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