Iggy of T.R.O.Y.


Iggy Azalea done plucked my last nerve. If I am remaining completely academic here cultural appropriation and the most opportune discourse of the academic elite  - that bullshit � come to mind. However, something about ole girl sticks completely in my craw. Brittney Cooper�s great analysis of Iggy as a post-racial mess captures most of my irk. However, there�s something else that my inner black girl � and my southern black girl � just don�t like about Iggy Azalea.
 
Source: Def Pen Radio
Iggy Azalea�s Southern Uncool
Iggy Azalea is an interesting binary of southernness � she sonically mimics American southern black women but comes from Australia, southern in its own right. If she pulled from her Australian experiences, there would be less discussion on my part. However, unlike American southern black folks who pull from the interstices of history and daily experience, Iggy pulls from other folks� memories  of southern blackness and women� particularly her mentor and boss T.I. In this regard, Azalea�s quips of ventriloquized southern black women�s fancy or lack thereof equal a sonic minstrelsy that further pushes southern black women�s value to the margins.  As a southern black woman, that irks me to no end.


Additionally, Iggy Azalea amplifies the mess that is southern black women�s (creative) voice in opposition to the social-cultural agency of southern white women. She signifies that white women�s daintiness � fancy � trumps black women�s agency.  I find this particularly fascinating because of the multiple levels this occurs on as she is a white woman from a former British penal colony functioning within a social-cultural space that amplifies similar Victorian aesthetics of respectability as indicators of women�s worth.

 Helen of Down Under
It is some kind of strange how many black male rappers are coming to Iggy Azalea�s aid. It�s not surprising, but it is maddening that they are scambling � literally SCRAMBLING � to aid the fair Iggy. We know the story of Helen of Troy, right? Fair haired beauty, the most beautiful woman in the world, whose beauty, according to Christopher Marlowe, launches a thousand ships. Helen was bad. And quiet(ed). And suitable � six suitors at the least � vowing to win her affection and courtship. We don�t have Helen, but we damn sure got Iggy of T.R.O.Y. Her blatant nonchalance about why black women and black folks matter has launched a thousand tweets and unquenchable thirst. 
Still from T.I. music video for "No Mediocre" featuring Iggy Azalea

I can somewhat understand T.I.�s concern (but not his recent tweets) � she is an investment. But these other folks? I don�t understand. It�s reminiscent of black men�s fetishizing of white women, the terrorism of black men dying at the expense of the paranoia surrounding white women�s sexuality, and the idea that white women�s concerns trump er�body else. Iggy of T.R.O.Y. reminds me of Sybil from Invisible Man (and the psychological entendre that Sybil represents elsewhere), Mary Dalton, hell even a little bit of Scarlett O�Hara. Going after Azaelia Banks because she calls out Iggy�s lack of fancy is foul and unacceptable.  Iggy Azalea revels in the fact that she knows she is taken care of at the expense of anyone, especially black women.

All notions of profitability aside, if Iggy Azalea sets the expectations for women in hip hop I�m tapping out. She doesn�t fight her own battles. She starts them. If Iggy Azalea is hip hop, she needs to take it to the square. She needs to fall back on her own experiences. She needs to understand that her lack of voice is frustrating. Being the victim works for her. It is horrifying to think that it is an expectation that these black men come to her aid at the expense of silencing black women pushing back that all ain�t dainty in hip hop. Is it really that serious to disregard black women�s narratives to get a shot at a RT or a chance to �court� Iggy of T.R.O.Y.?

BOY STOP.