 |
| Phuket, so someone else uses "Fantasea." |
[Ed. - Because I can’t make up my fucking mind about where to go next, I decided to return to the inspiration for my original music project - i.e., learning about the bands/artists in my personal collection. Alphabetically, as it happens.]
Where I Found Her
There was this old site, Too Good for Radio (which doesn’t look terribly active anymore), that used to put out massive monthly playlists. I found it during the dub-step era, which says something about its hit/miss ratio (e.g., much, much more of the latter), but still credit the site for introducing me to artists like Lana Del Rey and, of course, Azealia Banks. That said, the one and only thing I ever downloaded was her debut mixtape, Fantasea. Je regrette rien…
Who She’s For
I would call her club/dance music, but also accept that sells her short. The best description I’ve read so far came from The Guardian’s John Robinson (quoted by Wikipedia), which framed her as “an appealing blend of Missy Elliott and dance-pop.” The same source calls out other genres - e.g., “hardcore hip-hop” and “indie pop” and “dance music” - and maybe that middle genre sounds closest. Banks straddles a lot of genres - and I think that’s her appeal for me.
A Little More
“Yet her willingness to push those buttons is refreshing.”
The day I decided to do a dive into Azealia Banks I pulled up Google news and typed “Azealia Banks” into the search bar. This was the first headline:
Azealia Banks denies rumours she ‘ate her dead cat’ and reveals she has a child’s SKULL
Or at least the text in the url (here's the actual, equally unflattering article). Again, that was the first news item on Banks from a web search on a random goddamn Thursday. The young woman meets her reputation. Related, the following appears in the sub-section of her Wikipedia page under “Controversies”:
“Banks has had feuds with people including Pabllo Vittar, Grimes, Elon Musk, Remy Ma, Cardi B, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Marina Diamandis, Charli XCX, Lady Gaga, T.I., Iggy Azalea, Action Bronson, Lil' Kim, Skai Jackson, Rita Ora, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Erykah Badu, Kreayshawn, Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, Baauer, Nicki Minaj, Sia, Dominique Young Unique, Jim Jones, Beyoncé, Angel Haze, Lily Allen, RZA, SZA, Rico Nasty, Lupe Fiasco,Doja Cat, Eminem, RuPaul, Perez Hilton, Nick Cannon, Diplo, Shea Couleé, Funkmaster Flex, The Stone Roses, K. Michelle, Shystie, Amanda Brunker, Troy Carter, Cupcakke, Mariah Lynn, DC Young Fly, Disclosure, Lizzo, Kim Petras, Slayyyter, Adrian Grenier, Busta Rhymes, Dave Chappelle, Anthony Fantano and Wendy Williams, among others.”
Add Ireland to that list (“She also mocked the Great Famine on Instagram by asking a follower; ‘don't you have a famine to go die in?’”), and Sweden (“I would really love to see someone bomb the shit out of this place, LMFAO. Give y'all white asses something to fucking cry about. Ugly blonde pigs you Swedes are.”) Look, I like prurient madness as much as the next guy, probably more, but it still strikes me as a minor crime/tragedy that nearly every interview or article one can readily find about Banks focuses on her half-crazed, seemingly random beefs - including the post you're now reading. A real person lives and breathes under all that noise, and she puts out some good music - some of it damn good - so I'll try to focus on Azealia Banks, the person, for the rest of the post.
She grew up rough, losing her father at a very young age, an event that either impacted or surfaced violent tendencies in the single mother who raised her (lotsa disturbing violence). Banks escaped to her older sister’s place as soon as she could and, just like any time she found her way on stage, she reliably impressed someone enough that they'd try to move her to bigger things - e.g., her performance in “a comedy-noir musical” titled City of Angels at age 16 convinced an agent to send her to auditions (Nickelodeon, TBS and…Law & Order). Other opportunities took her to London (on a development deal with XL Recordings) and Montreal - where, incidentally, she became “Azealia Banks” instead of “Miss Bank$” - but she hit (or steered into) dead-ends every time. Rather than say she worked where she could, I’ll say she worked where she did - strip clubs among them, and keeping her head down from the sounds of it.
Fittingly, she created her own opening by releasing her debut single, “212,” through her own website. The single, along with her 1991 EP, put Banks on the map. Things get…really, really complicated from there, and I’ve got no goddamn energy to follow the unnavigable Wikipedia posted on all the singles, tours and broken relationships that litter Banks' career. As such, the top-line events include: the release of her first mixtape, Fantasea, in May 2012; the release of her one and only album to date, Broke with Expensive Taste, in March 2015; and her second mixtape, Slay-Z, in March 2016. Singles leaked all over and without much logic throughout this period; the earlier part of the same period saw Banks collaborate with pop-culture giants like Lady Gaga and Kanye West: that none of that material made the final cut on the respective projects (ArtPop and Cruel Summer) does the semi-perverse work of upholding the Banks legend.
She just kind of keeps going, really, landing the leading role in the RZA-directed Love Beats Rhymes (originally titled, Coco) and reportedly getting positive reviews for it, then getting into an altercation with Russell Crowe as RZA’s guest at a party Crowe hosted. On the one hand, sure, there’s the self-sabotage, but, as Banks put it in a 2018 interview with Highsnobiety:
“It’s like people get way too dramatic about things. Who cares? People do shit. People have done shit to me, I’ve done shit to people. It just fucking happens – you live and you learn and you move the fuck on. Honestly, I don’t know what people’s obsession is with me being like this. People are always like, ‘Are you a miserable person?’ Oh my fucking god. Like I’m at home hanging out with my dogs, baking cookies, writing songs, watching TV, and doing my goddamn thing. People love the drama and then they like to pretend they don’t.”
On the critical side, the several reviews I read for Broke with Expensive Taste (The Guardian, Spin, Time) and Slay-Z (NME and Pitchfork) tend to hover around the same broad opinion: the quality is there, but the delivery and/or construction doesn’t add up, and, even when it feels ill-conceived, they all praise Banks for, as a soccer coach famously put it regarding Clint Dempsey, trying shit.
My overall impression of Banks goes something like this: she’s not trashy and she sure as hell isn’t stupid, something that comes through when you read the Highsnobiety interview or listen to her on a 2018 Breakfast Club interview. For all the mess and her history of near-misses, that’s the kind of thing that makes Azealia Banks comes off as someone that some future ground-breaking artist might point to as an inspiration. She’s very impressive and original when she finds what she’s after. I liked this from Time’s review of Broke with Expensive Taste:
“Banks is capable of some clever wordplay, but the most defining characteristic of her rapping is how she infuses it with melody: she lines up syllables like a firing squad, repeating the same sounds and hums and clicks with a sing-song-y cadence. When she’s in the zone, it’s vaguely hypnotic.”
I can't defend everything Azealia Banks has done and said, but I also don’t think that's my job. I also wouldn’t call any one thing she’s done an example of unadulterated genius (except one; see below*). What I will say is that she’s written and arranged some songs that I really like. I can see multiple scenarios that would move me to delete everything by her in my personal library, but she hasn’t crossed any of them yet. She’s as likely a candidate as any modern artist to do so, but, y'know, here's to hoping. Like all the people who reviewed her albums and mixtapes, not to mention everyone who’s given her a chance, and not to mention every goddamn teacher I’ve ever had, I believe she can do something even better, and I hope she gets to it.
About the Sampler
Probably more limited than what one would expect based on the above, but then again, maybe not. I held my favorites from Fantasea, for one - e.g., “Atlantis,” “Runnin’,” “Chips,” and the fully brilliant “Jumanji.*” Having only listened to Broke with Expensive Taste for the first time this week, I experienced a wee selection panic around that album, but finally settled on “Idle Delilah,” “Soda,” (which I found clever), “Wallace,” “JFK,” and late favorite, apparent throwback pop-gem, “Gimme a Chance,” plus the other deepest possible throwback, "212."
I never quite clicked with Slay-Z, but still wanted to share what I’d call the best from that one: “Riot” and “The Big Big Beat.” For what it’s worth, I know several of these will wind up on the February 2021 playlist; a couple even might make the final cut for the 2021 Top 100 playlist. I don’t like everything Azealia Banks did, but I really like the songs that work.
Where I Found Her
There was this old site, Too Good for Radio (which doesn’t look terribly active anymore), that used to put out massive monthly playlists. I found it during the dub-step era, which says something about its hit/miss ratio (e.g., much, much more of the latter), but still credit the site for introducing me to artists like Lana Del Rey and, of course, Azealia Banks. That said, the one and only thing I ever downloaded was her debut mixtape, Fantasea. Je regrette rien…
Who She’s For
I would call her club/dance music, but also accept that sells her short. The best description I’ve read so far came from The Guardian’s John Robinson (quoted by Wikipedia), which framed her as “an appealing blend of Missy Elliott and dance-pop.” The same source calls out other genres - e.g., “hardcore hip-hop” and “indie pop” and “dance music” - and maybe that middle genre sounds closest. Banks straddles a lot of genres - and I think that’s her appeal for me.
A Little More
“Yet her willingness to push those buttons is refreshing.”
The day I decided to do a dive into Azealia Banks I pulled up Google news and typed “Azealia Banks” into the search bar. This was the first headline:
Azealia Banks denies rumours she ‘ate her dead cat’ and reveals she has a child’s SKULL
Or at least the text in the url (here's the actual, equally unflattering article). Again, that was the first news item on Banks from a web search on a random goddamn Thursday. The young woman meets her reputation. Related, the following appears in the sub-section of her Wikipedia page under “Controversies”:
“Banks has had feuds with people including Pabllo Vittar, Grimes, Elon Musk, Remy Ma, Cardi B, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Marina Diamandis, Charli XCX, Lady Gaga, T.I., Iggy Azalea, Action Bronson, Lil' Kim, Skai Jackson, Rita Ora, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Erykah Badu, Kreayshawn, Rihanna, ASAP Rocky, Baauer, Nicki Minaj, Sia, Dominique Young Unique, Jim Jones, Beyoncé, Angel Haze, Lily Allen, RZA, SZA, Rico Nasty, Lupe Fiasco,Doja Cat, Eminem, RuPaul, Perez Hilton, Nick Cannon, Diplo, Shea Couleé, Funkmaster Flex, The Stone Roses, K. Michelle, Shystie, Amanda Brunker, Troy Carter, Cupcakke, Mariah Lynn, DC Young Fly, Disclosure, Lizzo, Kim Petras, Slayyyter, Adrian Grenier, Busta Rhymes, Dave Chappelle, Anthony Fantano and Wendy Williams, among others.”
Add Ireland to that list (“She also mocked the Great Famine on Instagram by asking a follower; ‘don't you have a famine to go die in?’”), and Sweden (“I would really love to see someone bomb the shit out of this place, LMFAO. Give y'all white asses something to fucking cry about. Ugly blonde pigs you Swedes are.”) Look, I like prurient madness as much as the next guy, probably more, but it still strikes me as a minor crime/tragedy that nearly every interview or article one can readily find about Banks focuses on her half-crazed, seemingly random beefs - including the post you're now reading. A real person lives and breathes under all that noise, and she puts out some good music - some of it damn good - so I'll try to focus on Azealia Banks, the person, for the rest of the post.
She grew up rough, losing her father at a very young age, an event that either impacted or surfaced violent tendencies in the single mother who raised her (lotsa disturbing violence). Banks escaped to her older sister’s place as soon as she could and, just like any time she found her way on stage, she reliably impressed someone enough that they'd try to move her to bigger things - e.g., her performance in “a comedy-noir musical” titled City of Angels at age 16 convinced an agent to send her to auditions (Nickelodeon, TBS and…Law & Order). Other opportunities took her to London (on a development deal with XL Recordings) and Montreal - where, incidentally, she became “Azealia Banks” instead of “Miss Bank$” - but she hit (or steered into) dead-ends every time. Rather than say she worked where she could, I’ll say she worked where she did - strip clubs among them, and keeping her head down from the sounds of it.
Fittingly, she created her own opening by releasing her debut single, “212,” through her own website. The single, along with her 1991 EP, put Banks on the map. Things get…really, really complicated from there, and I’ve got no goddamn energy to follow the unnavigable Wikipedia posted on all the singles, tours and broken relationships that litter Banks' career. As such, the top-line events include: the release of her first mixtape, Fantasea, in May 2012; the release of her one and only album to date, Broke with Expensive Taste, in March 2015; and her second mixtape, Slay-Z, in March 2016. Singles leaked all over and without much logic throughout this period; the earlier part of the same period saw Banks collaborate with pop-culture giants like Lady Gaga and Kanye West: that none of that material made the final cut on the respective projects (ArtPop and Cruel Summer) does the semi-perverse work of upholding the Banks legend.
She just kind of keeps going, really, landing the leading role in the RZA-directed Love Beats Rhymes (originally titled, Coco) and reportedly getting positive reviews for it, then getting into an altercation with Russell Crowe as RZA’s guest at a party Crowe hosted. On the one hand, sure, there’s the self-sabotage, but, as Banks put it in a 2018 interview with Highsnobiety:
“It’s like people get way too dramatic about things. Who cares? People do shit. People have done shit to me, I’ve done shit to people. It just fucking happens – you live and you learn and you move the fuck on. Honestly, I don’t know what people’s obsession is with me being like this. People are always like, ‘Are you a miserable person?’ Oh my fucking god. Like I’m at home hanging out with my dogs, baking cookies, writing songs, watching TV, and doing my goddamn thing. People love the drama and then they like to pretend they don’t.”
On the critical side, the several reviews I read for Broke with Expensive Taste (The Guardian, Spin, Time) and Slay-Z (NME and Pitchfork) tend to hover around the same broad opinion: the quality is there, but the delivery and/or construction doesn’t add up, and, even when it feels ill-conceived, they all praise Banks for, as a soccer coach famously put it regarding Clint Dempsey, trying shit.
My overall impression of Banks goes something like this: she’s not trashy and she sure as hell isn’t stupid, something that comes through when you read the Highsnobiety interview or listen to her on a 2018 Breakfast Club interview. For all the mess and her history of near-misses, that’s the kind of thing that makes Azealia Banks comes off as someone that some future ground-breaking artist might point to as an inspiration. She’s very impressive and original when she finds what she’s after. I liked this from Time’s review of Broke with Expensive Taste:
“Banks is capable of some clever wordplay, but the most defining characteristic of her rapping is how she infuses it with melody: she lines up syllables like a firing squad, repeating the same sounds and hums and clicks with a sing-song-y cadence. When she’s in the zone, it’s vaguely hypnotic.”
I can't defend everything Azealia Banks has done and said, but I also don’t think that's my job. I also wouldn’t call any one thing she’s done an example of unadulterated genius (except one; see below*). What I will say is that she’s written and arranged some songs that I really like. I can see multiple scenarios that would move me to delete everything by her in my personal library, but she hasn’t crossed any of them yet. She’s as likely a candidate as any modern artist to do so, but, y'know, here's to hoping. Like all the people who reviewed her albums and mixtapes, not to mention everyone who’s given her a chance, and not to mention every goddamn teacher I’ve ever had, I believe she can do something even better, and I hope she gets to it.
About the Sampler
Probably more limited than what one would expect based on the above, but then again, maybe not. I held my favorites from Fantasea, for one - e.g., “Atlantis,” “Runnin’,” “Chips,” and the fully brilliant “Jumanji.*” Having only listened to Broke with Expensive Taste for the first time this week, I experienced a wee selection panic around that album, but finally settled on “Idle Delilah,” “Soda,” (which I found clever), “Wallace,” “JFK,” and late favorite, apparent throwback pop-gem, “Gimme a Chance,” plus the other deepest possible throwback, "212."
I never quite clicked with Slay-Z, but still wanted to share what I’d call the best from that one: “Riot” and “The Big Big Beat.” For what it’s worth, I know several of these will wind up on the February 2021 playlist; a couple even might make the final cut for the 2021 Top 100 playlist. I don’t like everything Azealia Banks did, but I really like the songs that work.
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