Azealia Banks has never had a problem with self-expression, and that trait remained front and center in a Instagram stories post on Tuesday (detailed by TMZ) which found the NYC-born rapper and singer revealing just how much she had to say about the title, cover art and, well, basically everything about Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter album.
This is far from the first time that Banks has had less than positive things to say about Beyoncé's recent decision to veer into country music, having offered up immediate criticism when Beyoncé dropped "Texas Hold 'Em" and "16 Carriages" on Super Bowl Sunday, sneering, "Nothing country about it. You’re setting yourself up to be ridiculed again. There’s a theatrical element to country music. Them critics are not just going to accept an ugly blond wig and bullying from Jay-Z. It’s giving big-time musical grift. Yes, Black girls can make country music. But you’re just really not hitting the button.”
This time, however, Banks offered a decidedly lengthier commentary on the situation, as you can see below in the precisely-quoted text from Tuesday's post.
Azealia Banks performing at Electric Brixton on January 27, 2019 in London.
"Wow we didn’t even try to put even a little effort into a more artistic title?
"Sis I live for whiteyonce Donatella Bianca Bardot DOWN, But I’m kind of ashamed at how u switch from baobab trees and black parade to this literal pick me stuff.
"Like u do lame stuff like bring out some black listed white women (the Chicks) at the country music awards and they would never ever do the same for you. Ur always sharing ur platform with white women who are so jealous of you but have such a long history of sabotaging other black womens careers.
"There was so much pertinent cultural commentary to be made here. I don’t get why you have to be in white woman cosplay to make – (what’s really folk/bluegrass/adult contemporary) facsimile 'country' music. Like had you had a phonetics coach, and aced the vowel placements and twang to the lyrical and melodic phrasing that is the backbone of contemporary confederate romanticism in song. There could have been a humor to it which would bestow upon you even a smidgen of personality to make you an interesting person again... but You’re reinforcing the false rhetoric that country music is a post civil war white art form. And subsequently reinforcing the idea that there is no racism/segregation/slavery/violence/theft/massacres/plagues/manifest destiny craziness that form the bedrock of epithets like 'proud to be an American,' or 'god bless the usa.'
"I just wish you would get unobsessed with being boring and pretty all the time. This force mystique always reveals itself to be a true lack of understanding and/or a real inability to explain what any of it means in a sensible manner.
"We want you to be deep and artsy and avant garde and f--k our heads up and shift culture and do Tex-merengue-tejano-ton.
"I just don’t understand all the attention being given from one of the times biggest stars to a purposely secluded all whites club of damn near nobodies who’d never acknowledge you.
"Because they still owe you a rock Grammy for 'SugaMama.'
"R.I.P. Etta James – a critically acclaimed rock and roll artist Has songs like 'Tough Mary'... and you come out with 'SUGAMAMA.' I’m sorry,
"'Sugamama' is a Rock and Roll song that deserved a Rock Nomination and a Grammy. And you didn’t have to do anything other than be that girllllllll.
"Ugh I’m so saddened by Jay-Z and his overstrategizing everything beyonce to the point where it’s clearly his influence and not the real Bianca Bardot....
"Someone tell Jayz his strategies are corny and beyonce has better ideas. :(
"Like it’s obvious why we got n burna boy action for Ja Ara E, We would like to hear some beyonce records without Jay-z on them.
"We would like to see her outside without him and his pound puppy dreadlocks breathing all over herrrrrrr.
"I’ll give it to him for turning an initially very uninteresting Rihanna into one of the worlds biggest stars but he flopped with Rita and Meg and for the sake of all things grand, should realize how much he cramps her diva style ugh.
"Her legacy and freedom of expression is not his to share and I wish he would get over that. Sure Jay is an important figure in music but he is not THE STAR that is Bianca Bardot....
"Go somewhere n---a damn."
Of course, none of Banks' remarks are likely to have the slightest bit of effect on how Cowboy Carter performs on the charts when it sees release on March 29. (Indeed, if anything, it's likely to serve as a case of "there's no such thing as bad publicity.") Meanwhile, Banks' fans continue to anxiously await her next full-length LP, a wait which has gone on for quite some time.
As of March 2023, she told Dazed that she was knee-deep in the process of putting together not one but two albums, saying that she'd recorded 50 songs for Fantasea II, and another 25 for Business & Pleasure. That said, while she released the single "Dilemma" last year, there's been no further sign of anything else, so the great wait continues.
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