A prescript: this subhead is not to be taken literally. I am making a play on Azalea’s flop 2019 album, “In My Defense”. Listen and understand here. Whether Azalea’s honor deserves to be defended will remain to be seen. Let’s jump in.
This week I relapsed (starting streaming Iggy Azalea’s music on Spotify) after an intense period of withdrawals (being bored and having no new music to sate me). I seceded a record of abstinence to finally listen to Azalea’s most recent album, and notably her last. “End of an Era” is a somewhat boisterous final lap that rounds out Azalea’s discography with confidence, and doesn’t relay any sniveling shame regarding her decision to leave the music industry as it stands; her limited press surrounding the album says as much (I really love that linked interview, seeing as its chock full of “process” moments listeners rarely get to see beyond the curtain!).
We’ll discuss Iggy’s cultural impact and reputation in a moment, but when I stood it up next to her discography, I loved this album for what it was. Inventing full circle loops to her early mixtape days and famed stripclub era, Azalea deftly chops the record into chapters that reflect upon the stages of her life and career. The brash EDM influences and house beats that coated her first projects are back in full form; this aspect makes songs like “Brazil” and “Pillow Fight” so notable. Though the foul-mouthed swagger she approaches her self-proclaimed impact is a bit wide-eye-blink-and-gasp at first, if I endured “Thanks I Get” I can survive “Sirens”.
Iggy is definitely an outlier in my usual tastes, given that I don’t typically frequent the suburbs of wherever she’s from. Her meteoric rise to the forefront of Western hip-hop was definitely tinged by her easy acceptance into pop and willingness to feature a little bit of everywhere. Also, the proclamations of grime and struggle that she let slip in her backstory were a bit heavy-handed, and only began the patterns of a personality known as “barging foreigner with an affinity for appropriation” that sunk her career more than the following feature blacklisting.
The lore of Azalea’s various scandals and cultural crimes is lengthy, and I don’t really desire to chronicle it. Just know that I am cognizant of them, I am disdainful towards them and I’m sure you are as well, to an extent. I am just a girl, enjoying some mid-to-good hip hop music with beats that remind her of years past. I’m dismayed that Iggy is quitting music, because I enjoy her music. Her presence in the public, not so much. See y’all next week!