3 July 2014
In June 2014 Iggy Azalea, a white Australian who rapped in an American accent, was at number one and two on the US charts with her first two singles to appear on the Billboard Hot 100, the first time this had happened for any act since The Beatles hit America in 1964. ‘Fancy’, her US chart-topper featuring Charli XCX, made Iggy Azalea only the fourth solo female rapper to go to number one in America, and its seven weeks at the top was the longest reign by any of them.
We’ve been here before with Vanilla Ice, Snow, Macklemore and Eminem. Azalea faced questions about cultural appropriation and sensitivity, and didn’t make a great fist of answering them. Meanwhile, the white mainstream music-selling industry and music-buying public needed to think about why white rappers seemed to be so successful so easily. Not helping matters is how ‘Problem’ is lyrically a riff on Jay-Z’s ’99 Problems’, which surprisingly only reached no. 30 on the US charts and no. 23 in Ireland.
Iggy Azalea’s presence overshadows the fact that ‘Problem’ is our first chart-topping encounter with Ariana Grande. In truth, Ari has better number ones to come; ‘Problem’ is a squally, clattery ‘Crazy In Love’ wannabe. In one sense, maybe it’s a track that’s best forgotten. However, those issues remain. It’s likely we’ll be here again.
