If you don't get cancelled, you're not cool: rapper Azealia Banks lets rip

AZEALIA BANKS is ready for the apocalypse. Even if the rest of America is not. It is crazy, she says, how the United States allow “an economy to exist within an economy that it has no control over”. She’s talking about tech — and the new technocratic class she says is taking over. The rate at which that class is accruing wealth “versus what that wealth will actually be worth in the event of a nuclear fallout, or a meteor hitting earth” has got her paranoid. “You absolutely need guns,” she says.
Banks, 32, is the world’s most controversial female rapper. Her music has won her plaudits, and her feuds notoriety. From Cardi B to Lana Del Rey (whose house she threatened to burn down using witchcraft), Banks has pulled no punches. Her latest target is the pop star Troye Sivan. He said last week that 212 — a thumping electro-pop romp about cunnilingus which Banks released in 2011 — was his go-to pregame song. The rapper replied by calling him an “expired twink” and said this was “white kids’ way of apologising for bandwagoning”. He clearly had “no clue” what was happening to her behind the scenes.
Banks says she hasn’t earned due royalties on 212, or its parent album Broke with Expensive Taste, since 2020. It traces back to a deal she struck with her former manager, the attorney Jeff Kwatinetz, when she was 23 and he was 49. He sued for her extortion during the pandemic; she countersued for breach of contract, fraud and deceit, claiming that he groomed her. Kwatinetz's lawsuit hinges on Banks' "caustic" personality and weaponising her outspokenness to present her claims as "the rantings of a lunatic", the complaint reads. It is, in many ways, free speech that is on trial.
この記事は Evening Standard の November 15, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Evening Standard の November 15, 2023 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン

It's time for a brutal truth: JD Vance wa right about free speech in Britain
Britain’s complacency when it comes to free speech in this country can be measured by the testiness with which people react to criticisms about it.

‘Make-up is my mask. It’s a safety lanket between the world and me’
Euphoria star Hunter Schafer on her style evolution and learning to feel beautiful

STARS
Aries March 19 — April 19 Certain tricky issues need to be discussed, but the time has never been right. Now that these are in the spotlight, others are already presenting their side.

Classical/Jazz Marsalis's pact with the Devil—and Stravinsky —is a tight, spiky delight
The Devil, they say, has the best tunes, but if that's the case, we're all devil-worshippers.

A day in the life: Cardiologist and author Eric Topol
The US doctor cracks on with research at 5.30am, always makes time for exercise and relies on an Oura ring for his deep sleep

WHY TAMSIN GREIG LOVES SWANNING AROUND SWANAGE
Breathtaking clifftop views, dreamy cream teas and the best fish and chips in the world — oh, the actor does love to be beside the seaside in this Dorset town

At the table Sit back and take your sweet time at this Caribbean
Not to review one place by talking about another, but in the Amex desert of suburban Islington is a restaurant so improbable it might have opened by mistake.

HOW TRUMP AND MUSK'S FALLOUT WENT NUCLEAR
Theirs was the bromance of the century — destined not to last, but no one predicted it would implode quite so spectacularly. Katie Strick examines a very public break-up

Comedian Katherine Ryan sips margaritas at La Bodega Negra and loves breakfast in bed at Claridge's
I once held a cabbie hostage inside my gates. He was banging on the door and must have been captive for at least half an hour

The AI advertising revolution will be televised — and you can't escape it...
First it ratcheted up subscription fees. Then it introduced ads. Now Netflix has hit on a new wheeze: AI-tuned ads that will seamlessly integrate into whatever you're watching.