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Ned Kelly is a notorious Australian gangster considered a cold-blooded killer and is symbolic in Australia for political resistance. Think Scarface, but with a purpose. Grace Kelly is an iconic American actress that is known as much for her poise as her monologues. “I use to be obsessed with Grace Kelly. When I get married, I want to dress like her. She’s so gracefully chic. […] if i was a diva, I want to be that diva without the diamonds.” Iggy Azalea spiels about Ned Kelly over lushing about how much she misses meat-pies from her hometown of, Australia, and easily changes subjects to her love of Grace Kelly.

“I don’t sit home and write raps and hope it’s better than all the other white girls, I hope it’s better than everybody else’s…”

- Iggy Azalea

Iggy Azalea for all intents and purposes is the brainchild of the gangsterism of Ned Kelly and glamour of Grace Kelly. But who the fuck is Iggy Azalea? She’s the beautiful amazon rapping on top of boom-clap beats with electronic sensibilities. She’s the woman standing above six foot with heels and the most beautiful face that could easily put her in the middle of models like Tyra Banks, Naomi Campbell, and Janice Dickinson in their prime. She opens her mouth to speak and it’s a proper Australian accent, she opens her mouth to rap and she sounds like a lost rapstress that Foxy Brown and Lil’ Kim honed. The audacity of the Australian native is blunt as her wing-tipped eyes, but way more deep-rooted.

“I use to write poems. I use to be utterly obsessed with Tupac. It was disgusting […] I use to write down the lyrics in my notebook and read them in the mirror.” She gained notoriety through her strikingly explicit material and more striking visuals. She’s what would happen if Andy Warhol met Nicki Minaj and decided to make one of his own. Yes, it’s that serious. “I don’t feel like I’m not beautiful, but I don’t feel like I’m as beautiful as people make me out to be. I don’t think I was made to be a supermodel,” she continues, “People fuck with me because they know I can spit. If you have an undeniable talent, you get to skip those dealings.” I guess, the real question once knowing Iggy Azalea is why you should care.

Iggy Azalea is an enigma of sorts, the Catwoman of rap music. Google her name and all you find is her twitter and popular YouTube videos, most people don’t even know how she sounds when she speaks or her hardy laugh when hears a funny joke. All they see is the form-fitting clothes, pulled back blonde pony-tail, red-lips, and wing-tipped eyes. Hip-Hop’s superwoman can see through fakes and her bullet-proof bars are unscathed by ridicule, yet it wasn’t always that way. “I felt like the underdog. I was teased in school. I use to wear blue and green platforms and Chinese electric colored coats and people thought I was dumb for dropping out of school.”

Iggy dropped out of school at the age of 15 years old to clean toilets and floors to save up for her move to the U.S., despite what people may assume, Iggy grew up quite humbly. “My dad built the house we lived in by hand, brick by brick. You walked in the house and it was a square.” She continues into more aggravating territory. “I lived in Miami, and had a four-hundred dollar apartment. People are taking away the struggle that it took [get] here. It drives me crazy.” Ms. Azalea has an easy remedy, “If you think I am rich, you think I’m rich.” Iggy spares no feelings on how she believes that the real problem is people are unable to fathom work can be done with integrity, despite some worldly disadvantages, like money. She coos them in a way that you can hardly tell if it’s a arrogant rant or sisterly advice, either way it sounds nice.

The rapper traveled from the harshness of Krypton (or Australia) to our planet to supply us with heavy basses and arrogant lines in the form of her first single “Pu$$y” and her debut mixtape, Ignorant Art. The name was inspired by late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. “I always related to him. People always said that to him that his art was just scribble, but it’s crude art. I always felt like he was always misunderstood.” She explains the “Pu$$y” video as a walk in her life with everything ten times more sexual, purposely. Iggy Azalea has two goals to make you laugh and to make you a bit uncomfortable, both are met with the video. “Ignorant Art” has a mean swagger between conceptually being quite genius, but sonically being familiar and well, ignorant. She even got her good friend Chloe Mitchell (whose poem appeared on Kanye West’s “Blame Game”) to bless the album with an original piece that might be far from what someone might think, but that’s what it’s all about. What is genius? What’s ignorance? What’s porn? What’s art? What’s black? What’s white? Those are a non-factor to Iggy Azalea, especially the race thing.

“I don’t sit home and write raps and hope it’s better than all the other white girls, I hope it’s better than everybody else’s.” Besides, who has time to think about the silly things when you have a whole world to save? Iggy Azalea is shaping to be one of the most fascinating artists to fly out of the Hip-Hop world in a long time. “Sometimes, I feel like I’m completely nuts. Like, am I ever going to do this? Am I just some crazy bitch that looks at paintings and raps about it?” she says candidly with tenderness in her voice that is unusual for the brassy babe. No, Iggy, you aren’t crazy, but maybe a tad ignorant for attempting to take over one of the cruelest industries in the world and I mean that in the most artistically polite way possible. Perhaps, that’s why she is equipped with guns, a cape, and knee-high boots as the MCing crusader we’re coming to adore. “Iggy Azalea is the part of me I chose to show the world.” Thank god she believes in putting her best foot forward. You care.

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