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When it comes to “cancel culture” many folks would consider Iggy Azalea one of the first official inductees. Iggy had a pretty decent shot at joining the exclusive and highly selective club of female rappers fans are hesitant to accept new members into after topping the charts with her single “Fancy” in 2014. She seemed to have the complete package. Videos and pics displaying her bubble booty on Instagram in regular rotation? Check. An “urban” accent with lyrics referencing expensive champagne and addressing the ”haters”? Check. A dating history checkered with black athletes and rappers? Check. But it wasn’t long before fans shut the former Australian model and protégé of T.I. all the way down. Instantly, despite how many clever punch lines were peppered throughout her lyrics, no matter how catchy the beats were, no matter how many pop princesses she surrounded herself with, Iggy became the artist everyone loved to hate. For what seemed like forever when it came to think-pieces about appropriation and white privilege, the “Black Widow” rapper became the obvious example.
A recent interview with GQ attempts to give 27-year-old a chance to explain where it all went wrong and paint a portrait of a young woman just trying to pick up the pieces of her life and career and not just a manufactured product of the music industry meant to distract us from Nicki Minaj for three seconds. After a cancelled world tour and a scrapped album and a very public and predictable break-up with NBA player, Nick Young, she is putting the new outlook she has on life into practice. Still, there still appears to be something very problematic with her view of the industry and her failure to understand why the “problem” with Iggy goes way beyond a single with Ariana Grande.
As the piece points out, Iggy has gone through a lot of changes switching from the Def Jam record label to Island and hiring new management, but none of it has seemed to change her lack of understanding of what she represents to hip-hop fans: White privilege, which she implies is an American problem she’s had a hard time understanding:
“The whole privilege thing is a rough conversation.”
“I understand that in America there is institutionalized racism and there is privilege that comes with the color of your skin. That’s real. I grew up in a situation that didn’t involve any privilege and I worked really hard. A lot of my childhood is overlooked. People assume they know my life because Australia is a nice beautiful country. It’s tough because I want you to acknowledge my work and [to understand] that this wasn’t easy but I also don’t want to detract from or trivialize any people of colors’ position because that’s legitimate.”
“So it’s like, Where do I fit in that whole conversation? I don’t know.”
She may not know where she fits into a conversation about appropriation and privilege, but makes it clear that she’s no stranger to struggle and hopes that she can connect with fans when it comes to experiencing the hardships of growing up “dirt poor”. Before Iggy Azalea was Amethyst Kelly, a high-school drop-out who cleaned hotel rooms with her mother and pursued rapping to escape bullying. She attempts to find common ground without dismissing the concerns of a whole culture:
“I home-schooled myself. I had four jobs. I don’t wanna say that everyone’s feelings about racial privilege are invalid ‘cause I was poor. But how do we have a conversation where I’m not discrediting either scenario?”
But as always, Iggy finds herself facing criticism from all cultures including singer Halsey who identifies as biracial and seemed to celebrate her downfall once stating:
“She had a complete disregard for black culture. F**king moron. I watched her career dissolve and it fascinated me.”
But there are some celebs who don’t necessarily subscribe to the cancel culture, and in addition to schooling Iggy, also drop gems of knowledge and history that are actually helpful to us all. In the past, rapper Q-Tip once posted 40 tweets educating her on the history of rap:
“Did u know that remnants of slavery exist today thru white privilege?”
“I say this 2 say u are a hiphop artist who has the right 2 express herself however she wishes… this is not a chastisement this is not admonishment at ALL this is just one artist reaching to another hoping to spark insight into the field you r in. I say this in the spirit of a hopeful healthy dialogue that maybe one day we can continue.”
In a recent response to the GQ interview, rapper Talib Kweli reminded her of some important facts regarding aborigines in her native country:
But even with some of hip-hop’s greatest doing what they can to help elevate Iggy Azalea’s approach to hip-hop and black culture, she maintains that there’s nothing fake or forced about her style:
“I’ve been in America since I was 16, I’m about to be 28. America is gonna have an influence on me. I live in this country with everybody else. I’m supposed to live here for almost half my life and not be influenced by it? If I’m influenced by it it’s somehow inauthentic or an act? This is my life. It’s been here.”
“I understand why people criticize that because I have a voice in hip-hop. I make ‘black’ music. I don’t want people to think it’s not something I care about.”
When asked why hip-hop when it comes to her music of choice, she says she’s going to continue to do the music she loves, with or without the haters, in a “black accent” and all:
“Because I have to.”
“I don’t have a choice. Not because I need to make a living. I could have a comfortable life, and not release another record. But it’s what I like to do. I wanna wake up and make music. I know a lot of people would like me to stop.”
You can read the interview in its entirety here.
