Getting Iggy With It

First things first. The former 23-year-old model and Australian face of Levi’s jeans with the ultra exotic original moniker of Amethyst Amelia Kelly is even prettier in the flesh than her eye-catching publicity photos suggest.

Sitting in a characteristically colourful dress and good-humouredly facing the promotional merry-go-round a few hours before she takes to the stage with The Script in Whelan’s for Arthur’s Day, the girl better known as Iggy Azalea gazes out the window from the Morrison hotel’s penthouse over a grey and gloomy Liffey. She recalls her first Irish show just around the corner in the Academy.
“It was a lot of fun, but I remember a girl who pushed up against the stage and passed out,” Azalea says. “She missed the whole show. I met her afterwards when she came around and we took a few pictures and hung out for a bit. I wonder if I’ll see that girl tonight? I felt soooo bad for her that she missed the entire show. I was mortified, because at the time I had no idea when I’d be coming back and the poor thing was unconscious for all it. She was such a lovely girl.”
The rising rap star’s concern demonstrates a genuine appreciation and respect for her ever-increasing army of fans. There‘s actually an Irish Twitter fan account amongst the countless online shrines devoted to the Australian.
“Really? Wow, that’s amazing!” she exclaims. “I even had some fans come to meet me at the airport this morning who gave me flowers. I really feel very, very welcome here. My fans are very sweet. One time someone gave me a homemade cake. Everybody told me not to eat it, because it could be poisoned and I might die and so on.
“I figured that seeing as I had the girl’s Twitter name that if I did die, she’d be traced, and let’s be fair, she just wouldn’t do a thing like that. I ate it and it was delicious. It had gorgeous lemon icing. It smelt so good, so even though it goes against everything they teach you about taking food from strangers, I just had to eat it. She likes me. Why would she poison it?”
Expect the offers of cake, and just about everything else, to start flooding in, as Azalea finally releases her first album proper and follow up to 2011 mixtape Ignorant Art in early 2014.
“It’s been such a long journey,” she sighs. “It was supposed to be out in October and now I’m going on tour with Beyoncé so it was put back. Then it’s Christmas time, so they want to wait until February. I’m not happy about it but what can you do?
“I see the point about Christmas and I don’t want to be on the road then promoting an album. OK, I get it. But now they just said the other day they can’t put it out at the beginning of February because of the Brit Awards. For some reason if you put out an album at the same time as the Brit Awards you die or something.
“Apparently, right after the Brit Awards I’ll finally be able to put this album out that I actually finished ages ago. I’m very happy with it and the label are very happy with it also. It’s not like a situation where they didn’t dig the tunes.
“I guess they just want to wait for the perfect time, but in my opinion, there isn’t really a perfect time. You just have to put it out and get on with it, but they have to wait until it’s a good 30 degrees and there’s a rainbow in the sky and four dogs swiping past or something. Then, that will be the day they want to release my album. So, to eventually answer your very straightforward question - we’re looking at the end of February.”
Iggy can reveal that her debut will be audaciously entitled The New Classic. She even has those words tattooed on her fingers.
“I just love the phrase,” she explains. “I think everyone has phrases they might like but the great thing about being an artist is you get to make
music videos and albums to the words and phrases you like.”
Iggy hails from Mullumbimby in New South Wales, which is nicknamed ‘the biggest little town in Australia’.
“What that actually means no one knows,” she laughs. Apparently Mullumbimby is also renowned for its counterculture in the 60s and 70s. “All that means is smoking a load of weed and being a hippy stealing from farms. That would be the only counterculture of note. It’s just about growing cannabis.”
So, who inspired her to make music in such a place?
“There was nobody,” she confesses. “I couldn’t even tell you of anyone the same age as me who was into music, apart from one who was the geekiest and quietest girl ever who performed at our assembly and won some country music award. I was the only girl who had aspirations of doing anything like this.”
But the one and only Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott presented young Iggy with a profound pop, rap and fashion epiphany.
“It wasn’t just about the music but wanting to dress like her and be like her,” Iggy explains. “I thought she was super cool. I loved Tupac too. I was always fascinated with Hollywood and performers because I’m from the country where nobody ever does anything that glamorous or interesting. I adored dance and rap. I never felt particularly confident acting or singing, but I could sing along to rap songs really well, so I figured I could write my own rap songs.”
She’s had to endure her share of naysayers too. In one of her typically childish Twitter spats, Azealia Banks insinuated that the privileged white Australian likes of Iggy shouldn’t be allowed to rap.
“It’s soooo weird,” Iggy drawls in her deep Aussie twang. “For a lot of people in this world, there are things that will never necessarily make sense. You’ll even get shit about it from your friends. Some people are very straight up and down that they just don’t understand it.”
“I suppose that’s life though,” she sighs. “Even though part of me wishes that I could slightly suffocate those people at night time while they’re still asleep!”