Azealia Banks Slags Online Journalism Before Split From Label
Every time we think she's going to zig, she zags
Controversial US rapper and singer/songwriter Azealia Banks has announced her "freedom" from her record label, Interscope/Polydor, less than a day after going on a Twitter tirade against internet journalists, saying they would all be "better off having jobs at Starbucks".
In a series of excitable tweets posted this morning - in which she referenced everyone and everything from Alice Walker and Nelson Mandela to her teenage desire to be an "indie chick" - Banks confirmed her release from the label, for which she had been working on her debut full-length LP Broke With Expensive Taste — leaving the record's planned release for later this year up in the air after several delays already.
IM ABOUT TO GET OUT OF MY DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THATS THE BIG SURPRISE!!!!!
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 10, 2014
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I'm feeling like miss celie at the end of color purple.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 10, 2014
Free at last.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 10, 2014
Ugh, now I get to be the cool indie chick I imagined I would be when I was 14!!!
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 10, 2014
All I need is to be a member of Interpol and my teenage dreams are complete !
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 10, 2014
However, despite Banks' strong, independent, don't-need-no-label mask of bravado, reports suggest that, far from being her decision, the performer was in fact dropped by the label precisely because of the delays and clashes surrounding her debut's production.
Interestingly, the news of Banks' label split comes less than 24 hours after a late-night spat with Vice offshoot Noisey over its claim the serially temperamental singer had cancelled a scheduled appearance at the recent Hove festival in Norway because "no one turned up".
@NoiseyMusic that picture was taken well after the note that I had canceled was out.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 9, 2014
@NoiseyMusic u see this ? pic.twitter.com/jOWjAeOvUR
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 9, 2014
The official reason given for her absence in Norway was that she could not "make it to [host municipality] Tromøya in time", with questions having already been raised over the veracity of the context of Noisey's photograph, but Banks, evidently feeling she still had a point to make, nonetheless then began a multi-tweet criticism of online journalism and its practitioners, demonstrating a comprehensive misunderstanding of the industry in the process:
But internet journalists only make 200$ an article..... And that's IF their article gets chosen... What a whack hustle.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 9, 2014
They are all better off having jobs at Starbucks. At least Starbucks has benefits.
— AZEALIA BANKS (@AZEALIABANKS) July 9, 2014
She rounded out her rumination with a third tweet making light of Adderall addiction, which she has since deleted but theMusic.com.au was able to preserve for posterity before she did so:
Sheesh. A person's got to make a living, right? And to think, after we were so nice about how actually terrifying she is.
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