US hip hopper Azealia Banks to tour UK following split with Universal
The self-styled Yung Rapunxel, famed for her Twitter trolling, is back on track
Having weathered the ignominy of her most famous song, '212', then becoming an expert in Twitter beefs (she’s had a go at A$AP Rocky, Pharrell, Lady Gaga and Lil Kim among others; Google is full of articles dedicated to her prolific trolling), Azealia Banks is not a girl to be trifled with. With a capacity for braggadocio that would make Charlie Sheen wince and a habit of cancelling gigs like they're taxi orders, the potty mouthed NYC rapper has just split with her label, Universal, after a bitter Twitter spat.
These protracted battles with industry hucksters and hip hop’s great and good have somewhat stalled Banks’ path to superstardom. Now, free from the tyranny of major label bean counters, Banks might finally be on course to release her long-mooted debut album Broke with Expensive Taste and fulfil her claim that it is ‘the most innovative hip hop record that hip hop has seen in the last 10 years and for the next 25 years’. If her self-released new single, 'Heavy Metal and Reflective' is anything to go by then this might be more than mere hot air.
It's a sexy and menacing ride with stripped down, stroboscopic beats and profanity-strewn lyrics about Banks' prowess at cunnilingus, which carries on where '212' and her slew of early EPs left off. Born in 1991, Banks seems to look at that decade as a diamond mine for ideas as she samples A Tribe Called Quest, the Prodigy and Snoop Dogg. Stalking the margins between rap, house, rave and free jazz (Sun Ra pops up in her 2012 song ‘Atlantis’), the self-styled Yung Rapunxel goes back to the future to cultivate a scintillating new voice in hip hop.
02 Academy, Glasgow, Mon 15 Sep.