Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has worked hard to get where she is today. She dropped out of high school and came to the United States when she turned 16 to pursue her passion–hip hop. Eight years later, she’s on top of the Hot 100 list with hits like Fancy, singing with American superstars Nicki Minaj, Adriana Grande, and JLo, and attracting a fan base of close to 4 million on Twitter.
It hasn’t been an easy road to success, and it still isn’t. Being a white rapper, Azalea’s been picked on by black rappers including Snoop Dogg and Azealia Banks. Banks, who has 548k followers, recently tweeted at Azalea: “I just really want to know what your fascination with Black women is…Why do you want to act like us? I need to know…Why do you imitate us in such a way that i feel like you are actually making fun of us? Why?” This is where Azalea’s insecurities get the best of her. Instead of turning the negative into a positive, instead of talking about what drew Azalea into the world of hip hop, what she loves about it, she got defensive. Azalea went on a social media rant, directed at Banks: “You created your own unfortunate situation by being a bigot and don’t have the mental capacity to realize yet.” Banks hasn’t backed down. She says the success of Azalea speaks to a larger problem with race. Banks elaborates: “When they give these Grammys out, all it says to 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 s–t. You don’t own s–t, not even the s–t you created for yourself.’ And it makes me upset.” It’s too bad these two powerful, successful women can’t manage to hold a level-headed conversation. Or maybe they can. Maybe they just need to find the right format. Twitter ain’t it. 2paragraphs, maybe?
