I was 11 years old when I first heard the words “first things first, I’m the realist”. From then on, I knew I would be hooked. Born Amethyst Amelia Kelly, Iggy Azalea got her stage name from her childhood dog “Iggy” and “Azalea St.” which she grew up on. 

Azalea has been an active artist since 2011. As she so eloquently stated in her first song “Work” she started off with “no money, no family, 16 in the middle of Miami.” 

Though she came to Miami when she was 16, Azalea wouldn’t get her big break until 2012 when she was featured as the first woman on the XXL Freshman Class, a popular large platform for new hip-hop artists; this then resulted in her being signed by popular artist TI. After the signing is when her career really boosted. 

Her first major hit came with the song “Fancy” which featured Charli XCX, and was a song of the summer during 2014. That same summer, she would have another breakout song with her collaboration with Ariana Grande on Grande’s song “Problem”. She also had another song of the summer with her song “Black Widow” featuring Rita Ora. The success of these songs catapulted Azalea’s debut album, The New Classic, to instant fame with 4 Grammy nominations.

After the initial major success of Azalea in 2014, her career took a downward turn for a few years. She had a falling out with her mentor TI and separated with her label. This led her to start her own label, Bad Dream Records. In 2019, she released her 2nd album “In My Defense”.

This album showed a resurgence in Azalea’s career with songs like “Big Bag”, “Started” and “Sally Walker”. Part of this album’s success came from the press tour surrounding it which included multiple collaborations with then famous youtuber James Charles.

Part of Azalea’s success comes from her lyric choice. Her lyrics usually help the audience relate to how she is feeling. In her verse on “Problem” she states that “I’m thinkin’ I love thethought of you more than I love your presence”.

In another song, “Started”, she asks “Do you hate that you love me, or do you love that you hate me?”, she also states in that song that her “temper is way shorter than a Vine”. (Vine in this instance refers to the 6 second videos.)

Unfortunately, Azalea announced her retirement with her aptly titled 3rd album “The End

of an Era”. This retirement may have been sad for fans, but it was amazing for Azalea as she was able to raise her son, Onyx, whom she had with fellow rapper Playboi Carti.

Thankfully, Azalea has recently come out of retirement and will have new music coming out soon. Azalea has had one of the best marketing campaigns that I’ve ever seen. 

She announced her album by convincing fans that she was starting an Only Fans, only for them to subscribe and see her announcing her new album titled “Hotter Than Hell”. The album is slated to be released in December.