Help actually
unbiased journalism
Our mission is to ship unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds energy to account and exposes the reality.
Whether or not $5 or $50, each contribution counts.
Help us to ship journalism with out an agenda.
“You possibly can anticipate a whole lot of barbs from this album,” mentioned Ice Spice on the crimson carpet at Billboard’s Ladies in Music Awards this 12 months. By “barbs”, the 24-year-old New Yorker (who made her title in 2022 by coining the time period Munch to diss males used just for oral intercourse) signifies that Y2K! – her first full-length album – resounds with stinging slapdowns.
But it surely’s additionally a reference to her key affect, Nicki Minaj, with whom she collaborated on the only “Barbie World” (2023) and whose followers are nicknamed “Barbs” after the rapper’s extremely female, pink-haired persona.
The nods to Ice Spice’s elder stateswoman are there from the start. The opening bars of first monitor “Phat Butt” see Ice Spice, born Isis Naija Gaston, echoing the beat and noises of nose-wrinkling disdain Minaj made on 2012 single “Beez within the Entice”. Afterward the monitor, she notes her anointed standing: “Queen mentioned I’m the princess”.
However although she pays dues to her pop mother, she’s her personal girl and swaggers confidently into her personal soundscape constructed from hooks that get in your grill. In truth, she’s eye-rolling the up-and-coming rappers aping her fashion: “Acquired these bitches copying my pose/ Acquired these bitchеs bitin’ on my flows/ Like ballerinas, preserve ’em on they toes/ And I actually write, like f*** a ghost”.
Over the following 9 taut tracks, she doesn’t let up. Single “Suppose U the S*** (Fart)” finds her flipping off rivals as “not even the fart”. It’s not fairly the feminism Gen-Xers like me might need hoped to listen to from Gen Z. Spice is continually asserting her “fairly” seems to be are “toastin’ bitches like Pop-Tarts”. However there’s a wickedly infectious power, wit and filth to her confrontational braggadocio.
One of many early criticisms of drill music (which developed out of hip-hop in Chicago round 15 years in the past) was that the uncooked, aggressive style’s principally improvised raps lacked the dexterous wordplay of extra skilfully crafted hip-hop. However drill slicked down and smartened up because it moved to New York. Spice drops rhymes with playful and inclusive aptitude (Y2K! sees her stability a reference to septuagenarian rocker Mick Jagger with a extra fashionable, “Why would I tag her?”).
Born within the Bronx, the daughter of an African-American rapper father and Dominican gross sales clerk mom got here to own a savvy drive. She studied communications at college, the place she additionally performed fierce defence on the college’s volleyball crew. She was obsessive about the rap she heard from her father, finding out the flows of Jay-Z, 50 Cent and Wu-Tang Clan earlier than shifting on to the lovable/slicing fashion of Minaj.
In 2023 Spice dropped the succinct, six-track EP Like..? nailing the millennial slang with an interesting blase fashion over compressed, concrete beats and looped guitar samples. Y2K! builds on these foundations with brass samples (on “Popa”) menacing twangs and pan-pipe results (”Oh Shh…” feat Travis Scott) chunky/wonky synths (“Bitch I’m Packin’” feat Gunna) and a tolling bell (“TTYL”).
On “Did It First” with Central Cee (whom she’s rumoured to be relationship), she samples the UK drill star’s music “Bumpy Johnson” and finger wags that “if he’s cheatin’ I’m doin’ him worse”. He acknowledges that she solely strikes away from the mic to present him only one verse, “16 seconds”.
Take pleasure in limitless entry to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Enroll now for a 30-day free trial
Take pleasure in limitless entry to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music
Enroll now for a 30-day free trial
Following a wave of overlong albums, Y2K!’s cool, TikTokable concision feels effortlessly in management. Already in a position to boast that she’s “four-time Grammy-nominated”, Spice is clearly having enjoyable whereas hitting all her marks. Barbellous.
