Music

Azealia Banks really hates her record label

by Tyler Munro

Azealia Banks celebrated her January 2012 signing to Universal Records by joking that she just wanted to “drink a million bottles of champagne,” and two years later, we’re left wondering if maybe that should have been our first red flag.

In the years—YEARS—since signing, she’s found herself beefing with everyone from the Stone Roses and Lady Gaga to Lil Kim and G.L.A.A.D. More than that, she’s found herself riding on the coattails of a song she released in 2011.

And now, months after sharing the alleged track list of her once anticipated Broke with Expensive Taste, she’s taken to Twitter to bite the hand that feeds her.

Uh… okay. And they’d do this why? Ignoring for a minute her general lack of output and you’re still left with a once-hyped star riding as much on the successes of her two year old mixtape—something she herself admitted—as the controversies she’s forever stewing in.

And that was that. Like nothing happened her habits broke to old form today, swapping out complaints for her opinions on Degrass and Rugrats.

In some respects it’s worth looking at where Banks is coming from. Artists like M.I.A., Death Grips and Danny Brown have expressed similar frustrations with their major label representation in the last year; difficult to work with underground crossovers struggling with major league pressures are nothing new. But each of them were coming from a place of experience, and in most cases were late bloomers signing major deals after years of circuit experience.

Azealia Banks to this point hasn’t proven anything. Sooner or later, she’ll have to. The question is whether we’ll still care.