GQ gives Harlem MC a splashy look in next month's Style issue, where Banks talks meeting Kanye and getting money.
By Rebecca Thomas
Azealia Banks in <i>GQ</i>
Photo: Matt Irwin/ GQ
Don't be fooled by her Twitter tussles with rap vets: Azealia Banks is on her grind. The Harlem MC didn't let expulsion from this year's XXL Freshman Class keep her down. Instead, she's kept up her buzz up, at a noise level guaranteed to pick up a few decibels when she drops a new EP next month.
Banks confirmed via tweet this week that 1991 is due April 17 and will include the title track, plus "Grand Prix." The project's title is a nod to the year that gave us seminal albums like Nirvana's Nevermind, and artists like the 20-year-old Banks.
As for sonic expectations, we're hoping her brand-new "F--- Up the Fun" is a hint at what's to come. On the Diplo-produced number, the "212" rapper channels another New York femcee — Bedford-Stuyvesant's Foxy Brown — spitting rapid-fire over a relentless bass line. (Still no word on the whereabouts of her promised 212 EP, though, as Pitchfork pointed out.)
And while Banks took issue with fellow upstart Iggy Azalea landing a prime spot on the aforementioned XXL cover, the Aussie rapper can't yet claim a full page in men's bible GQ. The potty-mouthed Yung Rapunzel gets glossy revenge in the magazine's April "Style" issue, where they styled the cocoa beauty in a striped tank and petal-shaped yellow shorts; her smile is sly and her locks wind-blown.
After breaking through on last fall's viral smash "212," Banks is at work on her Interscope debut, due in September. She's tapped A-list U.K. producer Paul Epworth (Florence and the Machine, Foster the People) for an assist on Broke With Expensive Taste. In the accompanying GQ interview, Azealia spouts off about being an Internet sensation, Kanye West and who inspires her musically ("Azealia Banks") — all with that unmistakable Uptown 'tude.
"It's cool," she says of meeting bold-face fans like Yeezy. "But they're just people. The skies don't part and glow orange." Are you looking forward to Azealia's EP? Tell us in the comments!
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