14 DAY TRIAL // Rapper Azealia Banks is famous for not mincing her words, even if that means people will get offended (sometimes justly so) or that she stands to lose professionally because of it. Her interview with Playboy Magazine for the April 2015 issue is no different.
In it, she talks about racism, her obsession with dating older men, the fact that she’s bi and still looking for love, her career setbacks and how the controversy around the things she said in the past threatened to completely overshadow her music. Not that she cares all that much about getting radio airplay or anything.
Azealia hates America
If you’re not a fan of the rapper or you’re not on the same page as her, her interview is hard to digest, mostly because of the aforementioned tendency to not try to sugar-coat anything and generally not hold anything back.
Take the topic of religion, for instance: Azealia doesn’t understand how someone would not believe in God, so she starts on an elaborate explanation of God and computers and the human mind, concluding at the end of it that all atheists should just believe in God and stop looking for proof of His existence.
She says she doesn’t identify as a Christian because she feels like she and every other African American should not be Christians, because they should have never been introduced to the religion by the white man. They should have remained in Africa, where they would have had their own gods to believe in.
Speaking of the white man and America, Azealia hates her home country and she’s not afraid to state it out loud.
“I hate everything about this country. Like, I hate fat white Americans. All the people who are crunched into the middle of America, the real fat and meat of America, are these racist conservative white people who live on their farms. Those little teenage girls who work at Kmart and have a racist grandma - that’s really America,” she says.
If she could, she would leave America for another country, Azealia continues. She doesn’t say what’s keeping her here, what’s stopping her from following through with this promise / threat, since she can definitely afford the ticket plane.
Celebrity feuds
Azealia is famous for her rapping skills, but she’s more famous for the celebrity feuds she got involved in, particularly on social media.
Her all-time nemesis is Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, who, Azealia believes, is appropriating black hip-hop culture to make money. As punishment, Iggy should be banned, not rewarded with record sales, she’s said time and time again on Twitter.
Because Iggy’s career was propelled by T.I., Azealia also had harsh words for him and for anyone else who dared to come to the Aussie’s defense.
In reality, many of Azealia’s arguments are rendered null by the mere fact that, instead of just presenting them, she tries to spew them out with venom, attacking others and trying to get them to agree with her.
The same goes for her latest interview.