Iggy Azalea is the 2014 equivalent of Ja Rule. I like “Fancy” and I’m sure she has some other decent songs but I think she’s a pretty crappy rapper. She spells her own name. Multiple times. I hate to say it, but I think female rappers are kinda in fashion. Or maybe just aggressive women in hip hop.

Anyway, I think somebody who is worth checking out, and was around before this popularity surge and hasn’t really blown up, is Amanda Blank. I dunno what she’s doing right now but in 2009 she released one of my favourite albums, “I Love You”.

 

 

It’s fun and guilty sexy. Not the kind of sexy you want to admit to finding sexy but still sexy. It’s produced by Diplo and features all kinda people like Santigold and Lykke Li.   When I was studying for my Leaving Cert, I had some sort of a mental episode and my brother and I danced to the entire album straight through. That’s probably an awful advertisement for anything… Still, it’s got that Diplo, dance-y vibe to it which I love. The highlight for me is probably either the opening track, “Make It Take It” or track ten, “Big Heavy”. The first is a super high energy/electro belter, while “Big Heavy” almost has a kind of disco element.

It’s one of my favourite albums and I’ve been drawn to it again recently because I’ve been listening to the radio a lot and hearing the big Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj tracks and then I was thinking back to the Azalea Banks album from like last year. I think Amanda Blank was ahead of the curve. I think that if this album had dropped right now it would be huge and that seems kinda sad to me. So give it a listen. All five of you.