14 DAY TRIAL // Iggy Azalea doesn’t forget and she doesn’t forgive. You’d probably do the same if you went online one day to find out a song from a rapper you looked up to, Eminem, and heard him rapping about raping you.
Last night at the American Music Awards 2014, which took place at the Nokia theater in Los Angeles, Iggy won Best Hip Hop, and when she got on stage to accept her award, her first-ever in her career, hand in hand with mentor T.I., she was quick to point out that she’d won after going up against Eminem and Drake.
You can see the video of her acceptance speech below.
A brewing feud
Eminem has a new album coming out soon and he’s been releasing snippets of songs to get people interested in it. A few days ago, a song called “Vegas” leaked online and caused instant uproar because the Detroit rapper seemed determined to pick on yet another famous female entertainer in the most violent manner.
“Unless you’re Nicki [Minaj]/ grab you by the wrist let’s ski/ so what’s it gonna be/ put that [expletive] away Iggy/ You don’t wanna blow that rape whistle on me,” Eminem rapped on his verse.
This was the third time he did something to cause offense and outrage online, after first rapping about punching Lana Del Rey in the face “twice like Ray Rice” and dropping F-bombs to the left and right at HBO’s Veterans Day concert, a most inappropriate place to do that.
Regular music lovers online weren’t the only ones to find the Iggy rap verse offensive: the Australian rapper too thought the same, and she took to Twitter to say it out loud. What pained her the most was the fact that her younger brother was a huge Eminem fan, and it was very awkward and wrong for him to listen to a song from his idol, in which he rapped about raping his sister.
Iggy disses Em
In this context, seeing Iggy win Best Hip Hop and especially hearing her say “It means so much that I can stand here against Eminem and Drake and come out with this,” is the equivalent of a very subtle but oh-so-efficient diss.
This is like Iggy saying “Em, how you like them apples now?!.” She didn’t get an apology from him, and this was probably the best way she could think of of somehow getting back at him.
If that was really the intent behind this apparently innocent mention, she delivered it beautifully.
A packed night for Iggy
Iggy didn’t just get to go home with the first ever award in her career, she also scored high with her performances: she took to the stage earlier in the evening to perform a medley of her 2 biggest hits to date, “Fancy” and “Beg for It,” but she also helped Jennifer Lopez close the gala, with “Booty.”
Iggy has been in the news a lot lately, many times for reasons not related to her music, like this Eminem spat and a feud with Snoop Dogg, which degenerated into trading insults on social media. But there’s no denying that she’s a force to be reckoned with, and if she keeps up the hard work, she might still be around many years from now.
She should have probably waited for a while longer before rubbing it in to Eminem. After all, he’s been around for a long time, whereas she could still turn out to be just a flash in the pan.
