COURTESY: RAP-UP.COM
Before the “Fancy”-crooning, Australian-born female rapper Iggy Azalea, became known to the American pop music consuming masses as the response to the question “Who dat? Who dat?” her most famous lyrics sprouted from controversy. “I’m a runaway slave … master,” Iggy proclaimed in the opening bars of on-off freestyle rhyme “D.R.U.G.S.”
Azalea took to the Internet to release a letter in 2012 to apologize for the offensive nature of the lyric and explain the intended meaning of her quip.
Azalea argued that her line, derivative of the Kendrick Lamar song that shares the same beat as the Iggy recording in question, also shares a similar context. She repeated the black male rapper’s version of this lyric line for line, save for her inclusion of the term “master.” Azalea stated that taken out of that context, her rendition’s impact is altered.
“I was never trying to say I am a slave owner. The intent was to say was that past histories have been mastered,” she wrote.
Although the retraction does little to clear up her blatant and mildly inappropriate attempt at a tongue-in-cheek reference to the racial elephant that she represents in the rap music room, the end of her letter points to a dialogue that has remained omnipresent since she began to creep up the ladder of stardom in 2011.
“I am for unity and equality,” she wrote. “People should get a fair shot at whatever they want to do no matter what color they are; rap and hip hop as a culture is not exempt from this.”
Long before Iggy’s splash on the rap market, white acts during the golden era of rap like The Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass blended a white perspective with the traditionally minority-centric narratives of hip-hop culture’s brand of free expression. Furthermore, Eminem rose meteorically to rap superstardom with his verbal chronicles, bringing to life his blue-collar upbringing for fans of the genre in the early 2000s.
More recently, Macklemore made headlines as he beat out Kendrick Lamar for the Best Rap Album award at the 2014 Grammy Awards. Representing white women in rap, artists such as Kreayshawn and Kitty Pryde, sprinkle message boards and social media timelines. Former Def Jam darling and UK grime emcee, Lady Sovereign even predates Iggy half a decade with her international appeal.
“All people have a voice and equal right to use it,” Azalea demanded in her letter.
She’s right. She puts her voice, however, to peculiar use.
With eyes closed, Iggy Azalea’s signature grunting drawl would be difficult for listeners to match to her blonde hair, blue-eyed appearance. Admittedly, the concept of “sounding black” has been a slippery slope with which to build a foundation for an argument since a witness in the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial testified to hearing a black male voice.
In a similar circumstance in 1999 case “Clifford vs. Kentucky,” a cross examiner asked a witness, “Do some people sound like Blacks when they are talking?”
His answer: “Possibly, yes.”
Iggy Azalea stands as one of those strong possibilities.
Arriving fashionably late to an interview alongside mentor T.I. on the Hot 97 FM Morning Show in New York City, Azalea listed the numerous grievances she is privy to regarding her authenticity.
“Some people might not like that I rap in an American accent, and I’m Australian. Some people might not like that I’m white, and they feel things that I do are stereotypically black,” Azalea fired off, using air quotes to visibly punctuate the phrase “stereotypically black.”
Amongst the list of detractors dissatisfied with Iggy’s presentation is Rutgers University professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies Brittney Cooper, who wrote for Salon.com that Azalea benefits from performing blackness “without having to encounter and deal with the social problem that is the black female body, with its perceived excesses, unruliness, loudness and lewdness.”
Rapper Snoop Dogg posted much more blunt language to his Instagram account last month during a random and heated war of words with Azalea, referring to her as a “wanna b black b****.”
The remark sparked a response by Iggy’s black boyfriend, Los Angeles Laker Nick Young, before being diffused by T.I. This came just months after the artist told TheGuardian.com, “I have never had any musicians tell me that I wasn’t authentic.”
Iggy, the self-proclaimed “only white girl with a ghetto ass,” catches flack for more than her stage and studio presence. The Tumblr page Piggy Azalea dedicates its feed to archiving Iggy tweets and interviews deemed to be politically incorrect. The page’s banner dons this tagline: “Iggy Azalea is racist. For real.”
The tall, stunning rapstress survives all of this negative attention, continuing to be the face of many advertising campaigns. Likewise, her debut album, “The New Classic,” came in at number three on the Billboard 200 chart. The music on the album does very little to challenge the rhetorical structure rap in the manner that the antics surrounding Azalea contort the perception of what is acceptable in the genre.
Instead, Iggy opts, as she has on past minor releases, to regurgitate the hypersexual shtick prominent in the work of the most successful female rappers to date: Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Nicki Minaj, et al.
Near the end of the project, Iggy raps on the song “Goddess,” “Oh what? A white girl with a flow ain’t been seen before?” almost jeering at a reality that has become painfully apparent.
Her flirtation with outright parody of black American culture is the key facet to her novelty. Without it, she isn’t Iggy at all.
Maybe, being a tall, gorgeous, athletically built, Australian female isn’t unique enough in an industry almost exclusively dominated by African-American males.
For those who may have opted out of the original iteration of her album, Virgin EMI will release a reissued version entitled “Reclassified” with five new tracks on Nov. 24. Her breakout smash single “Fancy” reappears, giving Azalea another chance to answer the question “Who dat? Who dat?”
Maybe, this time she’ll decide to be herself.
