Photo credit: Alexander Stafford
“First things first, I’m the realest,” Iggy Azalea declared on her breakout hit “Fancy,” almost begging to be challenged. While Azalea may be real in the literal, Webster’s Dictionary sense of the term, her claim to street realness is far more suspect. The 24-year-old rapper was born and raised in Australia and has the speaking voice to prove it, yet she raps in an adopted Atlanta accent (“put your hands in the ai-yer!”) that makes each of her Southern slang-thickened verses seem like an elaborate party trick. But as the history of hip-hop has demonstrated again and again, authenticity has never been a prerequisite for success, and judging by the ubiquitous crossover hits on Azalea’s blockbuster debut The New Classic, the public is buying her act.
Even Azalea’s detractors can’t knock her for lack of commitment. Whether out of sheer love of the craft or the drive to prove she’s more than just a rapping runway model, Azalea rhymes with exacting technical precision. On record her verses boarder on over-rehearsed, as if she’s reciting them while balancing an Eminem biography on her head, but much of that rigidity melted away on stage Sunday night at her sold-out concert at the Rave’s Eagles Ballroom. Backed by a troupe of propulsive dancers, a pair of matching backup singers and an air horn-ready DJ, she worked the stage with the vigor of a battle rapper and the choreographed glamour of a pop star. From her ponytail tosses to her timed pauses and poses, she treated every moment on stage like a video shoot.
She was well served by her material, too. The New Classic is the year’s most sharply produced pop-rap album, and its deep bass, dance-minded breaks and million-dollar choruses translated well to the crowded ballroom. But the performance ran out of steam fast. By the half-hour mark the choreography had lost its athletic pop, and by the time the big hits came in the closing stretch—“Black Widow,” the Ariana Grande single “Problem” and of course “Fancy”—most of the authority had been drained from Azalea’s tired voice. All told her performance clocked in at less than 55 minutes, including some T-shirt cannon filler and a wardrobe-change break set to a raunchy clip from the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang. After the lights rose, Azalea’s most committed young fans lingered in hope of an encore, but they were wasting their time. Azalea had already played “Fancy,” and she’d already given the crowd everything she had. It turns out there wasn’t much of it.
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