Shit got heated on the internet last month when it came to Iggy Azalea. After Azealia Banks made disparaging comments about Iggy's arguable cultural appropriation of hip-hop on Hot 97, Iggy called Azealia a "bigot," which eventually led to Q-Tip giving Iggy a hip-hop history lesson and Iggy's label boss T.I. jumping in the ring to defend his signee. Now, in a new interview with Vanity Fair, Iggy's addressed the ongoing backlash against her, head-on.
"People have said I'm not real rap or real hip-hop," Igloo Australia Iggy Azalea says in the interview, "but I don't care if people think I'm pop or rap. Everyone interprets music differently." When asked if she thinks it's "weird" that a white Australian has rose to prominence in a predominantly and historically black musical genre, she replies, "...I never thought it was strange. If you go back to the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley and Eminem—they've all basically done black music. I felt this wasn't that far from what we've seen in music history over and over again."
She goes on to claim the heat she faces is not because of race, but because of gender: "...they don't say that stuff about Macklemore. So, yes, I think it has 100,000 percent to do with the fact that I have a vagina."
If we're being totally real here: Iggy's point about facing extra scrutiny because of her gender is very valid—in the music industry and in the world at large, sexism is as pervasive and all-encompassing as music piracy—but her claim about Macklemore is especially sus, since the notion that he hasn't faced criticism regarding his privileged status in hip-hop is, at best, untrue. To wit, Macklemore himself went on Hot 97 last month to address being accused of white privilege in a historically black genre, in a more nuanced way than Iggy has to date:
"This, to me, is what it comes down to: You need to know your place in the culture. Are you taking or are you contributing? … You need to listen, you need to be humble. This is a whole debate, but this is not my culture to begin with. This is not a culture that white people started. I do believe that as much as I have honed my craft and put in years of dedication into the music that I love, I need to know my place."
Watch Macklemore's Hot 97 interview below.
Lead photo: Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images
