Azealia Banks really went off here. She talked about how T.I. is a shoe-shining coon and how his girl, Tiny can't read. She talks about the "coincidental" ill-timing of the hyping up of Bill Cosby's sexual assault allegations how it takes the lack of indictment of Darren Wilson and Daniel Pantaleo away from the public's attention. She talked about the message that the Grammy's truly give. They're supposed to be "accolades for musical exellence," but as she states, Iggy Azalea is not excellence. In her words, "When they put these Grammy's out, all it says to these white kids is 'Oh yeah, you're great. You're amazing. You can do whatever you put your mind to' and it says to black kids 'You don't have shit. You don't own shit--not even the shit you created for yourself.'" For the most part, I can completely agree with Azealia. She's right. The industry's racist and Iggy is, at the very least, subconsciously racist whether or not she wants to realize that fact.
However, around the 11 minute mark, Azealia Banks states that Iggy should be put in the pop category in rebuttal to the host of the show explaining how businesses capitalize heavily off of how people will buy and support things that they see themselves in (i.e. white people and Iggy Azalea). Banks said that Azalea should not be grouped with hip hop or rap, in general. She should be grouped with pop. She should be grouped with Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry. Now I do see where Banks is coming from, but when she says this, she herself comes off as racist and hypocritical.
I've been listening to Iggy and Azealia for a long time and for a while, I would consider Iggy rap before pop and Azealia as pop before rap, but they both molded the genres. As of late with Azealia's Broke With Expensive Taste and Iggy's The New Classic, it's hilarious how the tables have turned within the past two years. I'd consider Azealia more rap than pop and Iggy, more pop than rap, but needless to say, they both cross into both. Iggy's music (as Wikipedia describes it) jumps more into the EDM-pop style, while Banks' crosses into the dance-hall and dance-pop. Musically, they both do it, but Banks doesn't want to be grouped with pop music or Iggy Azealea in general. Banks wants Azalea grouped into pop with other white artists, implying that pop music itself is something mainly by white people.
Now what does this make Rye Rye or Usher after he found Justin Bieber? What was Michael Jackson the king of? Is Drake the only one allowed to do pop and rap because he's half black and half white? Now do we no longer allowed to consider white people rappers? Was Eminem just death metal the whole time? Are Aesop Rock and George Watsky no longer innovative contributors to rap music? Those two don't even make genre-typical pop music.
While I agree with most of Banks' points, what she said is just hypocritical because she herself has made pop music. It's lie she's preaching the right message, but it's coming out the wrong way and from the wrong person. It's the equivalent of Ray Jasper speaking out against the unlawfulness of death row. I don't want to sound as if I'm on Iggy's side in any way, I just want to keep it fair. Where I'm from, people don't bang with Iggy because of the blatant racism of her existence in hip hop (and her weak music). People somewhat fucks with Azealia, but not many people know of her beyond 212. This becomes a feud against Iggy Azalea and the white-washing of hip hop and cultural appropriation of black culture that just needs a different face and approach.
