Listen to “1991” to hear a potential future commercial giant shred a beat more enthusiastically than she might ever again.
But the point of it all is to “listen to” Azealia Banks. Vogue-rap, queer-rap, seapunk all of these are things we talk about when we “talk about” Azealia Banks. The presence of rapping on thumping drums doesn’t mean shit, it’s the vigor and verve of that rapping. She starts in France flaunting her chocolate croissant and ends in Manhattan bragging that NY rose her and the most high chose her. Not many people this year attacked tracks more energetically or more joyously. Azealia succeeds when she’s rapping her ass off. What everyone else got wrong though, in overeagerness to pitch a new “movement,” was that it worked because of the idea of hip-house itself. Hip-house works far better than it has any right to. Passion of the Weiss Top Hip Hop Songs - 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006Īs much as Azealia Banks’s Twitter is the worst thing on the internet and the blogosphere’s obsession with her Twitter is the second worst thing on the internet, the inconvenient truth is that Banks made some of the most compelling music of 2012. Previously: Passion of the Weiss Top 50 Hip Hop Songs, 2012 (#50-26)
