Photos: T.I. brings Iggy Azalea out at the Basement
The King and his new Australian queen took over East Atlanta last week
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Iggy Azalea - T.I.’s latest edition to Grand Hustle, by way of Interscope Records - made her Atlanta debut at the Basement last Thursday. Photographer Kyle Kukshtel was there for her big reveal, after a performance by Gangsta Boo.
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Iggy came on to an uproar from the crowd and played her viral song “Pussy” first. After this, she played her song “My World,” and the crowd joyfully sung along. Everybody was definitely having a great time. When Iggy first came on stage, she was followed by a massive posse of people, including T.I. After “My World,” Iggy Performed her single with him called “Murda Bizness.”
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Azalea also received a shout-out of sorts in Jon Caramanica’s favorable NYTimes critique of Nicki Minaj over the weekend. To illustrate his point that Nicki Minaj, who’s new album drops tomorrow, is the most influential rapper in the game right now and that she’s “made it a more exciting time to be a female rapper than a male one,” he offers up Azalea’s emergence as an example.
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Iggy Azalea, a white Australian woman, is stuck on one mood. She sounds as if she learned to rap for a part in a Movie of the Week: she’s studied and awkward, an able imitator but not yet capable of more than that. Some of her rap moves come from Nicki Minaj, particularly the ways in which she tries to bend her voice into different shapes.
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And Iggy Azalea, who signed with Interscope, has fully inhaled Nicki Minaj’s skewed-Barbie aesthetic. Her videos are like small fashion shows, and Iggy Azalea, with her bottle-blonde hair and Jessica Rabbit manner, is inhabiting her character fully. (The white women of the new bunch appear to be playing with visuals the most; in addition to Iggy Azalea that includes Kreayshawn, who is frail as a rapper but as a carefully pieced together punk-chola doll, was one of last year’s more intriguing arrivals.)
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Iggy Azalea’s look is a reminder that for all of Nicki Minaj’s achievements, she’s still done little to upend the traditional weight of masculinity in hip-hop. And traditional masculine rules still hold sway.
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Read the whole thing. See more photos of Atlanta show.
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Related: Peep last week’s post on Atlanta-based emcee Sa-Roc and her essay about the self-destructive role Minaj has played in hip-hop/pop culture.