The glamorous and chart-topping Iggy Azalea. Source: Supplied
SHE’S a little bit fancy. She’s been called everything from a Glamazonian Centaur to a talentless wannabe.
Her accent is a weird hybrid of regional Australia and ghetto fabulous Miami.
Her legions of fans are called Azaleans and she starts online trends with the flick of a tweet.
She is a white female rapper from northern NSW who moved to America at 16 and now, 10 years on, she’s topping the charts in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
But who is Iggy Azalea?
Well, for starters, she’s the woman who has done something only the Beatles before her have managed.
In June her two biggest hits, Fancy and Problem (with Ariana Grande), matched the Fab Four’s chart record of having the No.1 and No.2 spot on the Billboard charts with her first two entries.
“I never really expected my career choice to turn me into Katy Perry-level fame because I know it (rap) isn’t that popular with people,” Azalea told radio.com after her song Fancy went to the top of the charts in several countries last year.
“I think I’m pleasantly surprised that people seem to be interested,” she understated, keeping it real.
And if Azalea’s blitzing the charts, she’s smashing social media out of the ball park.
Her Instagram feed @TheNewClassic has 6.1 million followers; on Facebook she has a precipitous 6.5 million “likes”; there are almost four million followers on Twitter and her combined YouTube views are more than a billion, A BILLION.
To say she is all right at social media is like saying her boyfriend, LA Laker Nick Young, is OK at basketball. Iggy and her team absolutely nail it.
The next musical mountain for Azalea to conqueur is the Grammys, which may only be days away.
The 26-year-old has been nominated for Best Rap Artist at next Sunday’s awards and, despite long odds of a white Aussie girl taking out the best rap catetory, it seems it may not be such a long shot.
Iggy Azalea performing on stage during the 41st Annual People’s Choice Awards in LA. Source: Getty Images
If she does pull it off her haters are really gunna hate. Snoop Dogg and other rappers such as Azealia Banks have tried to bring Azalea down because of the way she looks and the way she talks.
But Azalea’s still managed to come out on top.
Late last year Snoop Dogg posted a mean meme of a girl that looked vaguely like Iggy ‒ except she had braces and a rather unfortunate face ‒ with the caption “IGGY AZALEA NO MAKEUP”
After Iggy’s mentor, rapper T.I. stepped in to play peacemaker. Snoop then posted a video saying “No more bad talk. I apologize. I won’t do it again.”
Azalea 1; Snoop 0.
Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Australian music fans are already calling her “Our Iggy”.
Though for us to claim her then disown her when she doesn’t play ball on our terms is a bit rich. We’ll get to that, but first let’s get to know her story.
Born Amethyst Amelia Kelly in Sydney in 1990, Azalea moved to modest Myocum on the NSW north coast with her family as a toddler, later shifting to nearby Mullumbimby.
With a population of 3173, there wasn’t much to do there but dream of being a rapper.
Azalea looking completely unrecognisable in high school photo from 2002 Source: Supplied
Azalea’s primary school English teacher Amanda Betterson first introduced her to hip hop and in year 7, she delivered her first performance at the Lismore Police Citizens Youth Club.
“She used to actually teach the kids to do rapping and hip hop in class,” Azalea’s mum Tanya told the Daily Telegraph.
“I always knew Amethyst would do something to do with words and now she’s a modern-day poet,” she added with a little bit of bias. Bless.
For her stage name she chose her dog, Iggy, and the street she grew up in, Azalea.
Hold your porn name jokes. Her mum still lives in their Azalea St home, a place where Azalea hypnotised chooks and sometimes walked around with one on her head like she was carrying a water bucket.
The blonde superstar is 178cm tall so that would have been quite a fall.
“My family is there. I’ll always be from there. It’s who I am,” Azalea told me in an interview before her turn as support act on Beyonce’s 2013 Australian tour.
When I spoke to her, Azalea’s single Work was beginning to chart. This was right before Fancy and Problem sent her into the stratosphere.
By 16 Azalea was tired of the life in the slow lane of Mullumbimby so she left for Miami, promising her parents she’d return while crossing her acrylic nails behind her back.
She raps about it in her single Work: “No money, no family, 16 in the middle of Miami.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing once she got to the US. Struggling to find her feet in Miami, she moved to Houston, Texas, then to Atlanta, Georgia.
Just like Atlanta’s rap heroes OutKast, you can hear Azalea’s southern fried timbre when she raps on Beg For It and Murder Bizness from her debut album The New Classic.
Musically, Azalea’s sound has been honed since her first two single releases Pu$$y and Two Times.
They were raw to say the least. Clearly, she was still in the embryonic phase of her career.
Overtly sexual clips for the tracks went viral, Azalea’s striking, err, dimensions won her fans and already she had critics and other rappers lining up to tear her down for using her looks to gain notoriety.
Par for the course in the rap game, really.
Iggy Azalea’s detractors have lined up for a while and you can be sure the patriarchy is to blame for a lot of it.
Iggy Azalea has been nominated for Best Rap Artist at next Sunday’s Grammys. Source: Getty Images
When asked by Vanity Fair recently if she thought the criticism aimed at her was misogynistic, she shot back: “Well, they don’t say that stuff about Macklemore. So, yes, I think it has 100,000 per cent to do with the fact that I have a vagina.”
Being a white girl in a predominantly black game has raised the ire of many, too. Azalea has had to stand tall.
“Well, I never thought it was strange. If you go back to the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley and Eminem — they’ve all basically done black music. I felt this wasn’t that far from what we’ve seen in music history over and over again,” she shrugged.
And there were a few noses out of joint when Azalea didn’t make an in-absentia ARIA Awards acceptance in December for winning Breakthrough Artist.
Really though, what does she owe Australia? Diddly squat.
She’s made her name overseas, still sees her family and there is no evidence to suggest ARIA actually contacted Azalea to ask for a token thankyou video.
No wonder she barely gives interviews to Australian press after it became a clickbait “story”. It hasn’t hurt her popularity here; Fancy went to No.2 on the ARIA charts without even a promotional tour.
Speaking of awards, Azalea beamed, “This is the first award I’ve won in my entire life” at the American Music Awards in November.
Not only did she win one, she doubled her career trophy tally before the night was out, beating big names Drake and Eminem to win Favourite Rap/Hip Hop Artist and Album.
Fittingly, she said in her speech “(hip hop) inspired me to move to America and pursue my dreams, and it’s what helped me when I was a teenager to escape and to get through my life and to better times.”
Azalea and boyfriend Nick Young. Picture: Instagram Source: Instagram
We’ll see how she goes next weekend when she heads to the Grammy with Young in tow.
Her current love is making her exes look second-rate. Relationships with Hefe Wine and A$AP Rocky ended badly.
Wine is threatening to release a sex tape and the two are doing battle in court.
“I do not have a sex tape; I would remember if I had a sex tape. But if I did have a sex tape it would be completely f---ing fine and my own business,” Azalea told Vanity Fair.
Her relationship with rapper A$AP Rocky was fast and furious, too. She even had his name tattooed on her finger but has since crossed it out after they split acrimoniously.
Before The New Classic was released she told me about a song called Time Piece.
“It’s about a Rolex I bought for somebody that I had a relationship with. It’s saying, you can keep the watch that I gave you but can I have all the time back that you f---ed off me? I wasted all my time on you, bought you this f---ing watch, can I get my life back? It’s real.”
Now she has the support of a good man. Nicknamed Swaggy P, Young and Azalea moved into an LA mansion together recently and regularly attend sporting events and music industry soirees.
Just a fortnight ago the two were put on Kissing Cam at a college basketball game. Instead of kissing her beau, Azalea licked his cheek, the crowd went bananas.
When she’s not on tour, Azalea enjoys domestic bliss in Los Angeles.
“I’m a homebody. I already did all my wild s---. I’m glad I did all that early, because now I have so much to talk about in my music, and I don’t have to worry that I’m going to spiral out of control.”
Very much in control of her career, Azalea has just begun work on her second album. She’ll be keeping the Azaleans up to date through her social media channels.
Speaking in the February issue of GQ, Azalea is philosophical.
“At the very worst, if I have a short-lived career, at least I could say I sparked a change that I inspired some leniency in what people accept in hip hop,” before pausing, “And if I have a very long career and can be gyrating in a leotard at 35, that would be great.”
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