Admit it, You Hate Iggy Azalea

Now that the Grammys are over and she didn’t win everyone can now breathe a sigh of relief. We can all go back to our regularly scheduled lives because there’s a good chance that by this time next year Iggy Azalea will be as relevant as Macklemore is right now. Let the cheering begin.

However, if we are being honest with ourselves we know one thing. We know that deep down in places that it pains us to admit, some of y’all just don’t like Iggy Azalea. It has nothing to do with how she’s “acting” Black or how you don’t think she should have a voice in hip hop. It’s about that one thing, y’all just don’t like the girl.

Let’s be honest for a second. Hip hop isn’t about being real; it’s about being as fake as believably possible. When you’re a white woman from Australia it isn’t that believable. It is painfully hard to believe that a woman born in the down under can somehow end up on top. But that’s just what hip hop is all about; people come from obscurity and end up the talk of the town. In this case, Iggy is the talk of an industry. But let’s be honest with ourselves, it’s because we don’t like her. Nothing more, nothing less.

Many people will make several arguments about why they don’t like her. They’ll bring all types of tangential arguments of why her image is problematic to everything that hip hop stands for but be honest with yourself she’s the least of our worries as it comes to hip hop. The reality is that like Trinidad James and Rick Ross she found a way to exploit an industry’s weakness and it worked.

You can’t name someone in hip hop who is real. I mean if being Black validates your presence in hip hop then I guess she’s fake but if it’s about anything else then your argument is bullshit. I’m sorry that I have to make that statement but it needs to be said.

Listen if you hate her music or you don’t like the fact that she’s signed to T.I.’s Grand Hustle record label when the spot could have gone to someone more deserving, fine. I’m not going to argue with you. Her songs are “pop rap” and not something that’s typically respected in this industry. But let’s be real a lot of the stuff we respect in this industry are fake.

I’ve long said that hip hop is basically the wrestling of the music industry. Weave a lie so well that people actually think it’s true. Jay-Z didn’t sell so much coke that you could run the slalom; he’d have ended up in jail without the possibility of parole. Lil’ Wayne didn’t shoot anybody; he’s telling a story that he thinks will resonate with his fans. Rick Ross surely didn’t become a drug lord prior to his career in rap and we all know who he really is. Young Jeezy didn’t take over all of Stone Mountain with his drug selling; he just made you think he did. If you haven’t heard it before then hear it here now, it’s all fake. It’s just a story that we can believe.

When stripped down the core, the real reason why some people don’t want Iggy to be successful is because they simply don’t like her. That’s actually perfectly cool. Just like you don’t have to like Kanye’s new fashion line, you can choose to just not like Iggy. However, don’t make it about a bunch of crap that really isn’t a consistent rubric for how we judge artists in hip hop. Own it, claim it, say it, “I just don’t like the bitch.” It’s not that hard and if that’s how you feel you should feel confident leaving it at just that.

We can claim that she’s putting on an act for the cameras or we can say that she’s been out of line with comments she’s made about race and other things. The fact is, every single one of those hip hop artists that we claim are “real” are just as fake. They all make comments based on race that are just as problematic. While I’m on the subject of race, I know that Iggy has said some things about the n-word that have ruffled a few people’s feathers. Let me just say this, anybody defending their use of the n-word with anything other than just owning the fact that they choose to continue using a problematic word is ridiculous. I’m not saying that you can’t use it anymore, I’m just saying own the fact that it’s problematic but like many other things in society we continue to use it regardless.

What I’m trying to get across to you is that I think it’s important to not add in absurd reasons why you don’t like a person when you just don’t like them. I’ll be straight up with y’all, I hate Lebron. It’s not because I think that he takes advantage of the rules in the new NBA or that I think that he’s using steroids. I just flat out don’t like that sucker. I’ll tell you that and I’ll own it. That’s perfectly fine. You have people in your life that you feel the same way about. You’ll make up reasons why you say you don’t like the person but the reality is, you just don’t like the person.

It’s time we owned up to that. You can say her music is trash. I’ll be honest it ain’t the best rap music I’ve ever heard but I respect her hustle. She found something that works for her and figured out how to make a boatload of money off of it. We should all be so lucky. I leave you with this quote:

Richard said, “The next time the motherfucker call, tell him I said, “Suck *my* dick.” I don’t give a fuck. Whatever the fuck make the people laugh, say that shit. Do the people laugh when you say what you say?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Do you get paid?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, tell Bill I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. Jello pudding-eating motherfucker.” – Eddie Murphy, Raw.

Therefore, if Iggy is reading this… that’s how I feel about the subject. Make your paper boo boo.