Jimmy Ness brings more drama than a primetime NBC TV show
Azealia Banks just won’t go away. From dissing an A-Z of artists to alienating herself from a formerly supportive LGBT audience, she’s running a master class in self-sabotage. However, despite claiming page one of the industry blacklist, Banks packs the talent that most hipster quasi-musicians lack. “Heavy Metal and Reflective” is her first track since leaving/being kicked off Universal and a decent reminder of why we liked her the first place.
Though it’s tempting to deny, Azealia Banks is a compelling rapper. The twenty three year old can rhyme fast, aggressive and raunchy. In less than three minutes she delivers slick talk reminiscent of Missy Elliot’s purple-lipped banter on “She’s a Bitch.” “I be in Osaka with that papa, took that best trip, buy me Tamagotchi, sipping Saki and Moets’s.”[sic] Azealia rattles off entertaining first person bravado in near broken English without incorporating the mediocre pop elements or cliché sexual tropes that plague her contemporaries. The closest she comes to pandering is mentioning bisexuality, but she avoids re-treading tired lesbian references with some fun wordplay and delivery. “It’s some sex shit, I be with that Betty with that bubble and them breasts’s. I be lookin very jiggle jello in them dresses”.
The pounding beat also can’t go ignored. A mechanical high-tempo thump with occasional spoken vocals assists Azealia, while Yeezus nods his head approvingly from a pleather throne. Banks might be hanging on the edge of irrelevance by her turquoise painted fingernails but if she can use arrogance to fuel musical proficiency like ‘Ye before her, she might just be ok.
