My teenager is really into the Iggy Azalea songs currently playing on the radio. Thank goodness they are edited, or I’d never let her listen to them. I’ve warmed to Iggy after accepting that she IS a rapper and not some (to paraphrase a friend) “demon Milli Vanilli pre-recorded sh-t” coming out of a pretty blonde girl’s mouth. In my friend’s defense, he was watching the slightly NSFW “Fancy” video. Iggy’s dressed as Cher from Clueless in the vid, so it seems odd that she’s rapping. Iggy acknowledges in this interview with the Guardian that her rapping voice is very different from her speaking voice. She also talks about the 2012 controversy where Azealea Banks called Iggy a racist for a certain set of lyrics. Iggy has since apologized for her “tacky and careless” lyrics, but she says more about the feud here:

(Most) fellow rappers don’t care she’s white: “You know the funny thing is … I have never had any musicians tell me that I wasn’t authentic for being white and Australian. Not one. Even I had a warped perception of how I would be received in this business. What I’ve come to realise is that it’s the people who write about music — or who are outside it in some way — who have a problem with what I am doing. The only true insiders are the musicians themselves.”

Iggy’s solo move to the US: “No money, no family, [age] 16 in the middle of Miami. No, I didn’t just walk into hip-hop clubs and introduce myself to rappers!” (She moved to Atlanta from Miami, and then to Houston.) “I was very cautious because I felt freaked out. I only knew people that lived in my neighbourhood. I wasn’t walking around meeting randoms!”

She’s not making money yet: “I rarely see the actual money, I like to put it straight back into the other stuff. I’m still trying to cement myself so it’s really important to me that I have consistency in the quality of the things I put out.”

Her duets “keep the record company happy” so she can get her “sh-t together”: “But I never want to do them. I never want to do duets. I don’t think of other people when I’m writing my songs. I have to try and hold my own so much, it does not seem natural to me to ask for help. Sometimes a feature feels like asking for help.”

On her original calling: “I had always been drawn to jobs where there weren’t many other women involved, and very few women do audio engineering.”

About that Azealea Banks feud: “Getting the word racist put on me sucked. And it’s hurtful for other people to have to hear it (she nods in the direction of her boyfriend, who is buttering a crumpet). And it is hurtful for other people’s families to have to hear it. I think people seriously need to rethink that word. We are very liberal in flinging it around and it is pretty f—ing heavy.”

Iggy defends Lorde: “Yes, I didn’t know Lorde was a big old racist. Me, I’ve been called everything but it kind of irks me to think that they said that about a 17-year-old. Don’t say that about a kid! You cannot erase those things, they are there forever. I also think it is a generational thing, a misunderstanding. When I think of ‘Royals’ — ‘gold chains, diamonds on your timepiece’ — I think about Tumblr kids. She was talking about the aesthetic of Tumblr. The people writing the music see it one way, the consumers see it another. And anyway, is rap really that much of a stereotype? To say that rap is a guy in chains and baggy pants popping bottles in a club is stereotyping black culture. That has never been my aesthetic. I’m not wearing chains and big hoop earrings. I love the fact that I don’t rap the way I talk – I think it’s completely hilarious and ironic and cool. Didn’t I just recreate Clueless in my video [Fancy], the whitest thing of all time?”

On her critics: “For every pseudo-intellectual that’s writing something negative online about me, I’ll go to a show like this and look at the millions of people that are buying the records and think, they are simply not interested in that stuff.”

[From Guardian Observer]

Kaiser already talked about the Lorde controversy where people accused her of racist lyrics, and I agree with Kaiser’s take that Lorde was calling out materialism in general. Iggy’s case is not as easy to reconcile because in the “D.R.U.G.S.” song, she actually raps, “I’m a runaway slave master.” Iggy’s apology was that the lyrics were “a metaphorical take on an originally literal lyric,” and she was “never trying to say that I am a slave owner.” Her lyrics were only meant to reference a Kendrick Lamar song, but it didn’t come off that way to some people.

I do find it interesting that Iggy comes out and says she isn’t into doing duets. Her current chart toppers are with Ariana Grande and Charli XCX. Getting featured on other people’s songs is how a newcomer gets started in pop music these days. One day, other people will be featuring on Iggy’s songs. Maybe?

Here’s a photo of Iggy with her LA Lakers boyfriend, Nick Young. He’s 6’7″ tall!

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN