Azealia Banks // The Waterfront, 07.10.12
Azealia Banks - The ghetto girl gets all up in the Waterfront's grill.
Azealia Banks did that song, you know the one, with the swears where she looks as innocent as candy but has the c word liberally scattered through a massively aggressive and yet catchy ghetto-tech/hip hop track. It was big. Real big. For me, I got very into it and even got excited one day when I overheard someone listening to 212 on their headphones and I wanted to steal their headphones so badly for just those few minutes. So I was excited about seeing her live. She's hit the big time in terms of temporary celebrity pet, with Lady Gaga apparantly a big fan; I was even reading Vogue the other day and she appeared in there. Amazing how far a song can catapult a girl these days.
The Waterfront was packed full, mainly teenage ladies who did insist on screaming throughout which didn't make much sense to me, with also some 30-year old hip hop fans thrown into the equation. Lots of ladies, anyway. Perhaps a song which is so in your face, performed by a woman is empowering these days...a kind of new Riot Grrrl? Anyway, I digress. Support came from the Zebra Katz, a sound-a-like Azealia Banks duo who were frankly boring. DJ Cosmo up next was a pretty good spinner of discs; for one thing he had the theme to the Fresh Prince on vinyl, so that gives him a thumbs up from me straight away. Banks kind of snuck on stage; she is EXTREMELY small and so it was rather hard to spot her on stage above the audience, despite her flashing light bra. None of us can pretend we haven't wanted one of those, right? She whipped smartly through her tracks, of which she actually doesn't have many; no album out yet, even, but some good foot-stompers and she is a really fine rapper. She lacks a little confidence onstage but as she is new to the world of performing I will excuse her this time. She chatted a little with the audience which was nice, and she genuinely seemed to be having fun and to be quite relaxed. However, there was no evidence of the snarling, swearing, sarcastic woman we knew from 212's video. She was pretty, tiny and quietly spoken. Hmmmm. I think people were a little confused to not be faced by the Amazonian we all expected and hoped for.
After 40 minutes, she told us we were about to hear "the reason y'all came out tonight" (nice that she is self aware of her dangerously close slip to the realm of one hit wonder, and needs to ensure she have something or someone to grab hold of in order to retain her current position)...and 212 started. With it's bouncy beat and monotonous vocals, the entire audience were rapping along. Brilliant. It's almost like a trance tune the way it has several parts to it. Made me think, well, this is why this song did so well and her others haven't so far. It's an actual SONG but with rapping IN IT. She popped back for a one song encore but everyone had what they had come for and had gone away happy. It was a funny old night, for the artist and the audience to both realise everyone just wanted one song and the whole rest of the night was filler. Still! The song was truly great.
Lizz
