Iggy Azalea
Amethyst Amelia Kelly (born 7 June 1990[2]), known professionally as Iggy Azalea (/əˈzeɪliə/), is an Australian rapper and model.[3] Azalea's accolades include two American Music Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award, a People's Choice Award, four Teen Choice Awards and four Grammy Award nominations. Azalea is popular on video sites, her Youtube channel has accumulated 3.4 billion views, and 15 of her music videos have received over 100 million views on Vevo.
Iggy Azalea
- Rapper
- songwriter
- model
2011–present
1
- Bad Dreams
- Empire
- Island
- Virgin EMI
- Def Jam
- Grand Hustle
- Mercury
At the age of 16, Azalea moved to the United States in order to pursue a career in music. Azalea earned public recognition after releasing the music videos for her songs "Pussy" and "Two Times" on YouTube. Shortly after releasing those two songs, she released her debut mixtape, Ignorant Art (2011), and subsequently signed a recording contract with American rapper T.I.'s Grand Hustle label. Azalea's debut studio album, The New Classic (2014), peaked among the top five on several charts worldwide, but received mixed reviews from within the industry. The album eventually topped the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, making Azalea the first non-American female rapper to reach the top of the chart.[4] The New Classic was preceded by Azalea's debut single "Work" and chart-topping single "Fancy" (featuring Charli XCX), which hit the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Azalea was featured on Ariana Grande's 2014 single "Problem", which peaked at number two behind "Fancy". With these hits, Azalea became the second musical act (aside from the Beatles) to rank at number one and number two simultaneously on the Hot 100 with their debut releases on the chart.[5][6][7] In addition, she achieved three top ten hits simultaneously on the Hot 100 with the aforementioned songs and the album's fifth single, "Black Widow" (featuring Rita Ora), which debuted later that year.[8]
After her debut album, Azalea released a slew of singles to build anticipation for her intended second album, Digital Distortion. However, a series of conflicts with her label, as well as personal conflicts, resulted in the project being cancelled. Consequently, Azalea switched labels, releasing the EP Survive the Summer (2018) under Island Records. Further disagreements led to Azalea becoming an independent artist and creating her own label, Bad Dreams, through a distribution deal with Empire. Her second album, In My Defense, was released in 2019, followed by another EP, Wicked Lips, that same year,[9] and a third studio album, The End of an Era, in 2021. In 2024, Azalea seemingly announced her retirement from music as posted on her social media and reported on by Billboard.[10]
Career
2006–2012: Career beginnings, Glory, and Ignorant Art
When she first arrived in the United States in 2006, she stayed in Miami, Florida, and afterward lived briefly in Houston, Texas. Azalea settled for a few years in Atlanta, Georgia, working with a member of the rap collective Dungeon Family named Backbone. During that period, she met future collaborators FKi and Natalie Sims.[22][23] She said people would laugh at her because "they thought my raps sucked", but having grown up getting laughed at, she was able to shrug it off.[17] Meanwhile, she had met someone from Interscope Records who encouraged her move to Los Angeles during the summer of 2010. Interscope would eventually go on to manage her for a brief period of time.[18][17] It was during this time that she adopted her stage name, which she created from the name of her childhood dog, Iggy,[24] and the street she grew up on, Azalea Street, where her family lives to this day.[25] She also started making stop motion animated videos with freestyle rap because she felt like she had found her sound.[26]
On 27 September 2011, Azalea released her first full-length project, a mixtape titled Ignorant Art, saying she made it "with the intent to make people question and redefine old ideals."[27] Her song "Pussy" was included on the mixtape, alongside guest appearances from YG, Joe Moses, Chevy Jones, and Problem. In November 2011, she released a music video for her song "My World", directed by Alex/2tone. The video features a cameo appearance from character actor and former wrestler Tiny Lister, which earned her more attention due to its rising popularity online.[28] "It's supposed to have like, all the ridiculousness of a big-budget '90s video, but then chopped and screwed", said Azalea, of the video.[29] In December 2011, Azalea revealed she would release her debut studio album, The New Classic, as soon as she signed a major record label deal: "Once that's sorted out and I establish an overall sound and direction for the album, I will be able to know what artists would make for a dynamic collaboration."[30] On 11 January 2012, Azalea released the music video for "The Last Song", her third video from Ignorant Art.[31] In an interview with Billboard, released on 27 January, Azalea hinted at an Interscope Records signing, while also revealing hopes of releasing The New Classic in June, and for her debut single to precede it in March.[32]
Controversy
Accusations of cultural appropriation
Azalea claims partial Aboriginal ancestry, stating, "My family came to Australia on the First Fleet. My family's been in that country for a long time, over 100 years. If your family's lived in Australia for a long time, everyone has a little bit of [Aboriginal blood]. I know my family does because we have an eye condition that only Aborigine [sic] people have.".[145]
In 2012, Azalea caused controversy for her song "D.R.U.G.S", a remix of Kendrick Lamar's "Look Out for Detox", having adapted one of its lyrics to "When the relay starts, I'm a runaway slave / Master", leading her to release a letter online apologizing, stating that it was a "tacky and careless thing to say."[146] According to the British newspaper The Guardian, there have been "accusations of racism against Azalea focused on her... insensitivity to the complexities of race relations and cultural appropriation."[147] Salon writer Brittney Cooper critiqued Azalea's "co-optation and appropriation of sonic Southern Blackness, particularly the sonic Blackness of Southern Black women."[148] Her use of an African-American English accent[149] has been compared to blackface[150][151] and part of a "broad, vague area of white people pretending to be black: those who do it culturally, rather than cosmetically"[152] but also conversely as "wilful ignorance".[153] Both supporters and critics of Azalea's rise to fame in the hip hop industry noted that it was important to be inclusive while acknowledging and respecting the role of African-Americans in pioneering hip hop.[154]
After being asked to analyze and compare her speaking and rapping voice, linguistics professor David Crystal said Azalea might be doing it unconsciously to accommodate to the American rapping style, adding: "There are hardly any echoes of [Azalea's] original Australian accent in her speaking voice—just the odd word (e.g. "own", "believe") and inflection. She has developed a mixed accent (like so many people have these days) as a result of her traveling around."[155] When asked about the validity to the criticisms leveled against her, Azalea stated: "Do you not like me because I rap with an American accent and I'm not American? Well, that's valid on some level because that's your opinion and I can't change that", continuing, "But I'm not trying to sound black—I just grew up in a country where on TV and in music and film, everyone was American or any Australian person in them put on an American accent. So I never saw it as strange at all."[26]
In 2021, after Azalea released the music video for her song "Iam the Stripclub", some Twitter commentators accused her of blackfishing or "imitating a black female aesthetic"; Azalea called the allegations "ridiculous and baseless" and said that she had worn the same Armani foundation for the past three years "in every video since 'Sally Walker'".[156][157][158][159] Her makeup artist Eros J. Gomez took to Twitter to defend and clarify that Azalea was using the same foundation in all the music video scenes.[160][161]
Comments on racism
In 2018, Azalea claimed that the history of racism in the United States causes its audiences to dismiss her, and claimed that she, "grew up in a situation that didn't involve any privilege and I worked really hard", later reiterating on U.S. race relations: "I make 'black' music. I don't want people to think it's not something I care about. I want to make music for girls in the gym."[162] She stated, "It's important for music to reflect what is going on socially and for there to be those kinds of voices within the industry. But I want to be that person you can listen to for four minutes and not think about that stuff at all, and it's important to have that too [...] I'm not here to offer that commentary, but that doesn't mean I don't care."[26] In 2016, she lamented, "Many people think I still live in that bubble and that I don't understand that the United States is set up in a way that doesn't benefit minorities. I've lived here for 10 years now, and I don't want it to be that way either. I'm marrying a black man and my children will be half black— of course I care about these things."[163] She further dismissed the legitimacy of the racial controversy, citing sexism as the true cause of criticism.[164] In a feature covering Azalea's career, Clover Hope wrote, "Rather than seeing race as an issue, Iggy focused on the trend of women in rap being over-policed and accused of not writing their own rhymes, while in the process overlooking how artists like herself and Macklemore hold a broader industry advantage, even as they feel like outcasts in their field."[165]
In 2016, Azalea was planning to release her second album titled, Digital Distortion, explaining its concept: addressing the criticisms against her: "some of them were fair and some of them, I think, were unfair. I just think it's interesting that we live in this age of digital distortion where we're all distorting each other and distorting ourselves and our perception of who we all are, and none of it is really accurate anymore."[26] She later credited the support she received from fellow rappers as giving her motivation facing the controversial claims in the media: "I grew up loving Missy Elliot, loving Lil' Kim or Trina and so I'm lucky I have those women I really idolized support me. So, I get a little bit confident in that, knowing the people I look up to appreciate what I'm doing."[166]
