Azealia Banks

I think her engagement with internet microcultures -- including normcore -- is more a reflection of her interest in these things than any kind of conscious statement on race. Same thing with the stoner voice she does -- the point is to demonstrate that her talent is boundless and that she can assimilate whatever she wants into her art without losing control. Clearly, considering her statements on cultural appropriation, she doesn't think that every artist should view culture the way she tends to, as a bricoleur's buffet, but still, if you look at her music it's obvious that she doesn't want to be tied to a constraining ideal of authenticity either. She is a child of the internet and the white stoner voice belongs to her as much as it does any white stoner. The heteroglossia of her best songs feels qualitatively different from like, nicki minaj's parodic "voices" or iggy azalea's exploitative one-note schtick.

yeah i mean like i said, in listening to the album now i was kind of impressed at the kitchen sink pastiche-ness of it the way i would be a basement jaxx record or something ... it's better and broader than i expected.

nb it still does not *shock* me that this isn't hugely popular in the U.S., although it's certainly better than iggy azealia's album, not that this was ever in doubt

She's a very different kind of artist than either iggy or nicki, i think. More gifted but less savvy in terms of positioning herself in the public/establishing a brand.

well, iggy isn't very savvy either. iggy just had a hit record and white privilege

It takes savvy to leverage that privilege into a hit record. Either way iggy's music is boring and azealia banks is a genius.

(which goes back to my original point which was dont discount the 'hit record' part of that equation when pondering why azealia banks hasnt taken off here xp)

really though can we stop talking about why azealia banks hasn't ~smashed, literally the least important part of her argument. what does her making uncommercial music prove? the more interesting discussion is about iggy azalea - white priv, obv, and a great pop song that i'd be more comfortable calling great if it wasn't for everything surrounding her, tip's role in enabling her, the way it looked for years like she was going to be a laughing stock à la so many white female rappers who tried and failed before her, her australian-ness...

and tbh "fancy" did not sound like a surefire hit when i first heard it; the hook sounded too lurching, and there have been plenty of mustardwave knock-offs that never became hits.

the best bit of "fancy" is sort of its most egregious: "first things first, i'm the realest" is such chutzpah

Iggy Azalea is only more interesting from a cultural studies standpoint, Azealia Banks is a far more interesting artist.

I like the line "first things first i'm the realest" though, as a deliberate self-ironizing but anything but self-deprecating statement

It would be better to just appreciate Banks' music as its own thing, without reference to iggy azalea. Commercial hip hop in 2014 is mostly formulaic anyway so it's good Banks isn't trying to make music like that.

What put Iggy over imo is really the Charli hook. I think any number of rappers could have had a hit with that chorus.

Anyway, Twitter beefs and oddly coincidental names aside, there's no real reason to compare Iggy and A.B. They're doing very different things. The Azealia album is pretty strong all the way through, and the best parts of it are really great. Whether she ever has a real hit seems kind of beside the point. If she reminds of anyone of recent vintage, it's M.I.A. (Who did have an actual albeit sort of accidental hit, and then went on doing what she was already doing.)

the quest to bring back jelly sandals

http://www.complex.com/music/2013/03/azealia-banks-is-dissing-rita-ora-because-of-a-tweet-about-jelly-shoes

What put Iggy over imo is really the Charli hook. I think any number of rappers could have had a hit with that chorus.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Monday, December 29, 2014 9:22 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i used to think this but i have come around to the thinking that argues it is in fact her uncomfortable delivery which is the appeal of this artist

What put Iggy over imo is really the Charli hook. I think any number of rappers could have had a hit with that chorus.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Monday, December 29, 2014 9:22 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think that "fancy" is a duo of white women is prob why the track appeals to a lot of people, so i'm not sure this is true

couldn't tell you how that Charli hook goes because I've never gotten further than "first things first I'm the—"

jelly shoes are no more normcore than trucker hats

i think that "fancy" is a duo of white women is prob why the track appeals to a lot of people, so i'm not sure this is true

― J0rdan S., Monday, December 29, 2014 3:05 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Charli XCX is half-indian just fyi.

Also the chorus is easily the most memorable part of that song's lyrics, so I think that plus the 90s nostalgia-baiting video had a lot to do with it's success.

I think "Fancy" being a really fucking catchy song played incessantly on radio had a lot to do with its success.

I hate the song but its popularity isn't mysterious.

i think that "fancy" is a duo of white women is prob why the track appeals to a lot of people, so i'm not sure this is true

― J0rdan S., Monday, 29 December 2014 20:05 Bookmark

to me it's more that people hear a janky gwen stefani hook see a white blonde and it's like eh fuck it good enough

it's kind of amazing watching iggy deliver lines in that video, she's an IRL uncanny valley of some kind.

ban the '90s and white women

Season 2 of serial will float all these theories

there goes my whole shtick xp

lol

to me it's more that people hear a janky gwen stefani hook see a white blonde and it's like eh fuck it good enough

― r|t|c, Monday, December 29, 2014 3:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

gwen stefani's rebooted career would seem to thwart this theory

eh that happened concurrently

i used to think this but i have come around to the thinking that argues it is in fact her uncomfortable delivery which is the appeal of this artist

i agree - my favourite iggy song has always been "murda bizness" and the affect on her twang is ridiculous there, but it's also the most distinctive and best aspect of the track. by comparison both her accent and her lines on "fancy" are pretty whatever - i disagree that it's all about the hook, though charli xcx stanning baffles me in general i guess. i had no idea she was half-indian til today!

re: iggy's accent, i did note the crossover between US critics who were outraged at her mimicry and those who, back in the mockney days of lily allen's debut, were all "oh we don't see the problem why are you britishers always obsessed with class".

do u think iggy would have happened in the same way had she been an actual american blonde white girl?

serious question: do you think the fans who made it a smash know she's Australian?

gwen stefani's new material just sounds like she can't be arsed

eh that happened concurrently

― deej loaf (D-40), Monday, December 29, 2014 6:42 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

it most certainly did not

xp i've no idea who iggy fans even are. like, obviously there are "fancy" fans who just hear and enjoy a good pop song, but i can't imagine why you'd go beyond that and stan for her. i think it's likely that we'll look back at iggy ruling 2014 and go "wtf was that all about" sooner rather than later

At SOBs that night, there was a line down the block, and the bouncers outside were turning people away at the door. The crowd was racially diverse but predominantly female, and there were certainly more white girls than you'd see at your average rap show. Some of them proudly proclaimed that they were "Azaleans," a title reserved for Iggy's most dedicated fans. Angel Haze, one of the most talented female rappers who is not a white Australian out right now, was in the crowd with a friend.

http://gawker.com/5916913/all-the-girls-standing-in-the-line-for-the-rap-show-iggy-azaleas-sudden-rise

https://twitter.com/AZEALIABANKS/status/561989991350673408

what a piece of shit

out of artists whose music i appreciate, i probably hate her social media presence the most.

ok that's probably not true.

Why do people take such pleasure in pointing out the fact that she's an asshole? There's many of them out there saying equally appalling things every day. Why is Azealia so compelling?

i mean, she has half a million followers and tweets things that are obnoxious at best (and usually more than just obnoxious) on a daily basis. it's gonna be a recurring topic, it's not just people fixating on something that happened one time years ago.

pretty embarrassed for a vice managing editor to behave like that as well

The white gay dude who came after her with some complete bullshit for asking a question about the intersection of race and gay identity while erasing her own queerness is the asshole here.

Gotta agree with Slappy here. I mean, she's an ignorant asshole who has been consistent in her homophobic, transphobic, rape apologist statements. Why anyone feels the need to remind us of her latest fucked up twitter comment on a weekly basis is baffling.

Also, is it really all that surprising for a VICE editor to behave like that?

She retweeted “white gays have no culture only appropriation” :(

Also, is it really all that surprising for a VICE editor to behave like that?

― Greer, Monday, February 2, 2015 4:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ime most journalists, certainly staff ones, don't engage in bitchy fan forum level back-and-forths with artists on twitter and it's more on-brand for a vice employee to maintain supercilious detachment

She retweeted “white gays have no culture only appropriation” :(

― Vasco da Gama, Monday, February 2, 2015 10:23 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how is this not a legitimate thing for her to express (or even express agreement with) as a queer woman of color?

also it should be abundantly evident that most aspects of gay culture, especially the hip slang that even heteros and mainstream media have started using in the past couple of years, have been appropriated from queer people of color

I guess the bummer here is just that a totally justified critique (white gay men need to check themselves re: appropriation of POC) is getting overstated (NO culture? NO culture . . . at all? really?)

I mean, it would be super cliché for some butthurt gay white guy to start rattling off famous canonical names in order to populate some kind of "real white gay men" culture list, right? we don't need to namedrop Plato Marlowe Proust Caravaggio Michelangelo Ludwig Wittgenstein Alan Turing Tennessee Williams Jean Genet Rainier Werner Fassbinder John Cage Jasper Johns Andy Warhol Jack Spicer Frank O'Hara John Ashbery yadda yadda in order to indicate that uh yeah there are/were white gay men who did something other than approriate POC slang and that in fact quite a lot of Culture with a capital C *is* white gay male culture, right? Because such flag-waving, especially when routed through the claiming of race, ought to make us barf. It makes me barf that I just bothered to write that list out, frankly. But then if someone is going to say "gay white men have no culture" and allege that the ONLY thing said people do is appropriate, then that very overstatement is rather pathetically easy to shoot down

- but a mere RT is not worth getting to twisted about, honestly.

ao twisted about, rather

oh man :\ http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/i-am-a-victim-of-azealia-bankss-homophobia-567