Azalea moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a career in music, and has since resided in Los Angeles. To quote Charli in the chorus, “Keep on turning it up”.Amethyst Amelia Kelly (born 7 June 1990), known professionally as Iggy Azalea is an Australian rapper, singer, songwriter, model and television personality. Anchored by a brilliantly vacuous chorus from Charli XCX, the track ricochets from verse to verse with infectious bravado, swaggering from LA to Tokyo in one culture-crossing step. Listening to a song like ‘Fancy’, you sort of get it. The low-key track doesn’t fully take off till the 1m40 mark, when, out of nowhere, Azalea rolls into the firiest verse of her career over a subverted, through-the-floorboards party beat.ĭespite her malfunctioning moral compass, Azalea has rocketed through the airways and become one of the biggest rap stars on the planet. But from the opening verse, it proves alarmingly on-point: “ Two feet in the red dirt, school skirt, sugar cane, back lanes,” she raps of her Australia youth, before toppling into hyperspeed over interstellar trap beats that border on cosmic bliss.Ĭonsigned to the ‘TrapGold’ mixtape, ‘1 800 Bone’ is all the more impressive for its hidden-weapon status. The intro to ‘Work’ sets an unpromising scene: its “tryin’ to let you know what I’ve been through” voiceover seems to herald a misguided feel-my-pain anthem. The unfussy beat gets into your head, and Jennifer Hudson’s impassioned chorus ensures it sticks. This perky takedown of a tattooed troublemaker hits the sweet spot between craven soul-pop crossover and wind-the-windows-down anthem. Nonetheless, the song stands up as a certifiable banger, a perfect soundtrack for the kind of down-dirty club basements that leave your shoes covered in mysterious liquid. This Sleigh Bells-sampling number might’ve endeared Azalea to the hipsters of the world, if she hadn’t spent the rest of her career doing all in her power to alienate them. Thankfully, her boasts here are earned, the song’s insistent, syncopated beat shuffling under a berserker flow that destroys any scepticism about the shaky wordplay.

‘Yo El Ray’ doesn’t let you forget it: “It’s pronounced ‘Iggy’, bitch, and he is Diplo,” goes the hook. Azalea nabbed Diplo, appropriator-extraordinaire, for her ‘Trapgold’ mixtape.

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