Known as much for her beefs as her rhymes, Azealia Banks is definitely making a name for herself. The 21-year old Harlem rapper burst onto the music scene with her catchy hit "212," but then quickly found herself in the middle of squabbles with the likes of Kreayshawn, Iggy Azalea, Lil Kim, T.I. and most recently Jim Jones.
If she's bothered by the various conflicts she isn't letting it show. She released her 1991 EP in May, then followed that up by dropping a mixtape titled Fantasea. She now finds herself on the cover of Vibe alongside red hot producer Diplo.
Check out an excerpt from her cover story with the publication.
VIBE: You’ve come a long way since riding the Uptown 4 train. How are your peers reacting to your early success?
AZEALIA BANKS: The energy I’m getting is kinda, “Yo, what up?” and keep it moving. There’s no like… I don’t know.
Why do you think there’s hesitance?
Because I’m kinda this UFO that floats above wide ground. And nobody really gets it, but they see this weird floating object there [laughs]. When I spoke to Missy, she was like, “Yo, where did you come from?” Because you usually see people on their come up.
And now people are waiting to see if the UFO will crash?
Sometimes it is scary because you drop down in this territory where people feel like it’s their space. So then it’s kinda like, “Errr, hi…” And they don’t know how to react to you, and you don’t really know how to react to them. But they like your shit and you respect their shit. And it’s cool.
Besides feeling territorial, there are folks who take the hierarchal, respect-your-elders adage very seriously. Is that voided once someone disses you?
When people come at my head it doesn’t faze me enough to be sad. It’s just, “Listen motherf*cker, let me tell you about yourself and what I got and am about to get. You’re trying to knock me off my feet; I’m trying to stand tall, ’cause I’m here for a reason. I wasn’t even thinking about y’all, y’all came at me.”
Right, but not every 21-year-old newbie has the balls to publicly mouth off at T.I. Were you raised to be this fearless?
My mother was always like, “Anybody say something you don’t like, punch them in the mouth. Do it!” [Laughs] If I had a fight, when she came home I would get another a$$ whupping just for being a little bird. And she’d be like, “Why you letting these people bring you down?” I was a really fresh little girl, always arguing back, trying lipstick on, trying to shake my a$$—knowing in the back of my head I’m gonna get f*cked up [by my mother]. But fuck it, I wanna get f*cked up.
Do you think your American buzz so far has been built more off controversy than music?
Of course, because Americans are distracted by sh*t like that. It’s like, “Listen, T.I., if I was a f*cking boy you wouldn’t say anything to me.” But when I’m a girl and I say something back, the media wants to turn it into all these different things. Rappers beef all the time. I said what I said about [Iggy Azalea] and kept it moving. Then a month later you said what you said. And it keeps coming up. Leave it alone. I didn’t say she couldn’t rap. I said something very real. Out of everything, she had to [call herself] “a runaway slave master”? C’mon, that’s not swag. That’s not fly sh*t.
Continue.
And that’s all it was. For T.I. to drag me through the dirt… It’s silly. In Europe they leave it alone and keep playing my songs on the radio and I keep getting booked for fashion shows because they’re about the art. All I’m doing is making myself look bad by getting engaged with y’all because no one in Europe gives a f*ck about y’all. All I’m doing is giving y’all n*ggas exposure. So if you notice I’ve backed up off Twitter the past days [laughs].
Speaking of that wonderful social network, that’s the main thing you’re slammed for—calling out other artists on there.
Exactly. And that’s the only thing n*ggas could hold against me, because I’m hot. So you know what? I’ma back off and [tweet] about random sh*t and make these records. I’m trying to just reach out, do a little record…
Which brings us to Lil’ Kim. Why address her publicly instead of sending a private message or e-mail?
That’s what we did, and that shit is over. Yo, listen, [Lil’ Kim], this black cloud you got over you—don’t try to push that over me. You can keep that, because as soon as I released “Jumanji” is as soon everybody forgot about you. I have my hand on the dial; I can control how hot and cold you are right now. So I’m not even going to give it to you. I tried to make a legitimate track with you, tried to collaborate. I was bigging her up and she keeps throwing it back in my face. I tried.
Do you regret getting into these Twitter clashes?
Of course, because it’s e-thugging… Who wants to look like that? But how else am I gonna reach y’all? I don’t have a T.I. to get on a radio show and defend me; I’m the one behind me. Y’all expect me to agree like, “Oh yea, I’m wack. I only have one song.” That’s one song y’all niggas don’t f*cking have. You might win some, but you just lost one.
Kanye certainly doesn’t think you’re wack. Tell me about the time you guys first met in London last year.
He hit me up like, “You’re mad talented. What do you eat for breakfast?” The whole conversation was pretty dense—two Geminis in one room. So it was so many ideas flying.
To read the rest of the interview head over to Vibe
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