Crews 
We haven’t heard much from Iggy Azalea in sometime but now the rap vixen is speaking out on her drama filled 2015, her beef with Azealia Banks, the Black Lives Matter movement and the racial tension America is experiencing. Check out excerpts from her interview with “Elle Canada”
Okay, so let’s really look at 2015. You grew up loving hip hop and rap, and you now get to participate in this community—
“Kind of…it depends on who you talk to.”
Well, you get to express yourself through rap. But for the majority of 2015, your relationship with the hip-hop community was incredibly fraught—how do you feel about this?
“So many people think that I don’t care about rap music and the community, but I absolutely care about it, to the core of my being. That’s why the Q-Tip incident annoyed me so much: Why do you think I need a history lesson? Because surely if I did know anything about hip hop, I wouldn’t mix pop and rap together? Or I wouldn’t rap in an American accent if I truly understood? I just have a different perspective about rap music. I love learning about hip hop, I love reading about it and I actually love having debates with other people about it.”
But you understand why some people in the hip-hop community might find it problematic?
“Of course. It’s black culture and black music, so it becomes a racial conversation—versus Keith Urban, who is making country music, which is considered white. It becomes a very muddy area. And it became especially difficult in 2015. The United States has such a fraught history with race, and I don’t think I realized how prevalent racism still is and how hurt people still are until I moved here and saw it for myself. As I was growing up in Australia, it was easy to think ‘Well, that was then and obviously it’s not like that now.’ It’s not something you can understand when you’re on the other side of the world. But many people think I still live in that bubble and that I don’t understand that the United States is set up in a way that doesn’t benefit minorities. I’ve lived here for 10 years now, and I don’t want it to be that way either. I’m marrying a black man, and my children will be half black—of course I care about these things. And I understand if you’re not comfortable that I rap with an American accent, and you are totally entitled to your own opinions, but you don’t have to listen to my music. I’m still going to keep making music.”
Are you looking for acceptance from the hip-hop community?
“Certain people who don’t like me think that I don’t love rap music, but I love rap music. I love it like it’s my fucking husband…. I think a lot of people in hip hop have a tough time finding something in common with me. At least white [and black] male rappers both have dicks and they’re American. But for me, I’m a white woman from Australia. I get it, but I think we have a lot more in common than they think.”
Iggy also referenced Azealia Banks in her explanation as to why she would like to erase most of 2015 from her memory.
If you could redo anything from 2015, would you?
“Umm, yeah…of course. If I could, I would Men in Black memory-erase 2015, I totally would—that would be amazing! Oh, God, there are so many things. I think the Azealia Banks thing is what really started it all. We don’t like each other on a personal level, and that has gone on for many years—before the Black Lives Matter incident happened. So when I dismissed her, people started to think that I dismissed the whole movement, but I wasn’t trying to dismiss Black Lives Matter—I was trying to dismiss her because it’s our personal shit. I don’t think the subject matter of her tweet was invalid; I just think it was emotionally charged and driven by something else, and the whole thing got so misconstrued. I just wish I had acknowledged the issue head-on because it made people think I don’t care about what’s going on socially and what’s happening in America, and I do care. Even though I still hate Azealia Banks, I wish I had said it in a way that didn’t make people think I was oblivious to the movement. And I wish I hadn’t gotten into a fight with Papa John’s!”
