Recent blog posts about Azealia Banks from music blog aggregator, Elbo.ws http://elbo.ws/artist/azealiabanks/ 2013-06-19T04:58:26+01:00 text/html 2013-06-10T17:42:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4997763/governors-ball-2013-in-words-and-photos/
In 1994, when there were no Vines or Instagrams or Twitter feeds or blog updates to at least slightly numb one's FOMO, I watched MTV's coverage of the Woodstock re-up as a means to dull my anger about being born in the '80s. I was too young to go, and the dry, dirt-and-mud-free confines of my parents' basement were where I sat and watched it. It was aspirational. The mud didn't seem necessarily like fun, but with so many bands playing so close together, I could imagine braving the elements. Of course, at the time, I had no idea that [...]]]> text/html 2013-04-19T16:10:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4903328/the-5-best-videos-of-the-week/
Every music video that came out during this apocalyptic, ridiculous week felt like a way to kill a few minutes before either flames consumed the entire planet or Daft Punk got around to dropping their "Get Lucky" video, so if we found ourselves a little less captivated than usual this week, it wasn't necessarily the videos' fault. And a quick word about the video that would've wound up at #6 on this list. With their last two videos , the team of Youth Lagoon and director Tyler T. Williams made clips that played with time and with [...]]]> text/html 2013-04-16T17:29:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4896028/azealia-banks-yung-rapunxel-video/
In case you weren't entirely sure if Azealia Banks really gives a fuck or not, here's the video for her witchy, ferocious track "Yung Rapunxel" which features Banks breaking champagne bottles on SWAT Team Members' riot masks. The Illuminati imagery is heavy in here, too, replete with an owl flying in and out of Banks's forehead. A good start to the week for her, after capping-off last week's attempt to tussle with A$AP Rocky. Check out the wicked thing below. Read More...]]> text/html 2013-04-15T14:42:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4892994/coachella-2013-sunday-wu-tang-clan-grimes-jessie-ware-and-more/
SpaceGhostPurrp doesn't really scream Sunday brunch hour entertainment, but he and his crew Raider Klan were one of the acts to kick off Day 3 of Coachella. Yet, he, Key Nyata, and the whole lot of them sold the kind of menace that is better suited for a dark club than beaming sun rays and palm trees - although, Purrp is from Florida, so perhaps he was feeling right at home. The set, surprisingly, featured a dearth of tracks from his 4AD full-length Mysterious Phonk , really emphasizing that this was a group effort and not about [...]]]> text/html 2013-03-30T16:00:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4861209/azealia-banks-no-problems-video/
Azealia Banks performed at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami earlier this month, and Rony Alwin was around to shoot footage, which he's turned into a video for her song "No Problems." The video finds Banks all around the festival grounds, performing with Steve Aoki, and hanging out with Diplo. Check it out below. And in case you missed it, check out her most recent single "Young Rapunxel" below too. That single and its video are out April 16. Read More...]]> text/html 2013-03-11T14:07:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4825734/azealia-banks-shares-new-single-wishes-death-upon-the-stone/
At this point, all the people Azealia Banks has Twitter-feuded with over the past few months should just band together, record a "We Are The World"-style song about the experience, and then just be done with it. Banks's latest target is an unexpected one: Reunited Madchester legends the Stone Roses, who, according to Banks, attempted to sabotage her set at Australia's Future Music Festival by loading in behind her. Read More...]]> text/html 2013-03-10T11:55:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4824493/azealia-banks-believes-the-stone-roses-are-out-to-get/
See, this is what happens when you give in to the temptation of cash and reunite: you go from being mystical and magical and wind up as a punchline in somebody else's comedy spat. The Stone Roses are being accused by Azealia Banks of sabotaging her set at some random music festival in Australia. Rolling Stone reports: "Big apologies on behalf of the stone roses to my fans at the festival today," Banks tweeted in the opening shot of her rant. "My ex tour manager made a pact with the stone roses saying they'd sabotage my [...]]]> text/html 2013-02-28T20:46:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4807010/azealia-banks-barely-legal-the-strokes-cover/
Azealia Banks haters, start your engines! I fully expect that just the headline "Azealia Banks - 'Barely Legal' (The Strokes Cover)" already has some people's vitriol tanks overflowing and ready for the comment section, but let's backtrack a bit. Anyone who has been following Banks for a long time - I'm talking before "2123 was even a glimmer in her teenage eye - knows she has a background in covering indie rock songs. When she was quietly making the blog rounds as Miss Banks, she got a minor amount of attention for a cover she did of Interpol's " Slow [...]]]> text/html 2013-02-16T16:53:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4783675/azealia-banks-harlem-shake-video/
Yesterday, we looked into the recent tensions between Azealia Banks and "Harlem Shake" producer Baauer that surfaced as a result of her remix of the song. Baauer had Banks's remix of the song removed from Soundcloud. This morning, she responded by posting her video of the song on Vimeo. "Sick and tired of these raggedy male musicians and their scarred ego's trying to block my fucking light," she tweeted this morning, a few hours after the video went up. "Sick and tired of all the motherfuckers trying to 'put me in my place.'" Watch the video [...]]]> text/html 2013-02-14T20:19:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4780081/azealia-banks-harlem-shake/
There's an amazingly insipid video floating around the internet lately: Dorm rooms full of kids going apeshit to Baauer's 2012 dance track "Harlem Shake," doing dances that have nothing to do with the actual Harlem shake dance. ( Observe .) So obviously, the time is right for an actual Harlem native, dance-rap queen Azealia Banks, to use the track as a bed for some hardnosed rap shit-talk. Download the Banks version below. Read More...]]> text/html 2013-01-10T08:59:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4712021/when-is-a-surge-not-a-surge/
The NME breathlessly runs up with the news that homophobia pays : The ongoing fued between Azealia Banks and Angel Haze which then became a row with Perez Hilton over the weekend has sparked a sales surge for Banks. Really? Has she sold double the number of records? Treble? Er, no: According to Billboard, Banks' '1991' EP saw a sales increase of 18 per cent over the last week, which equates to around 1000 copies sold in the US. That's not an extra 1000 sales, it's a rise to [...]]]> text/html 2013-01-07T16:20:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4705990/azealia-banks-no-problems-and-angel-haze-shut/
There was no fan on the flames of the battle between Harlem spit-fire Azealia Banks and NYC-via-Virginia rapper Angel Haze over the weekend. On Friday, Banks and frequent collaborator Machinedrum dropped "No Problems," a response track to Haze's "On The Edge." While the spat has primarily been relegated to Twitter and SoundCloud Haze followed up with a super straightforward cut called "Shut The Fuck Up" and solely between the two of them, it was not long before others got involved. This is where it gets prickly. Celeb gossip jabberjaw Perez Hilton, a former avid fan of [...]]]> text/html 2013-01-06T19:03:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4704479/banks-attempts-to-use-bisexuality-as-shield-from-asshattery/
A spat between Azealia Banks and Perez Hilton normally need not detain us, but given that it has now managed to generate one of the weakest defences of bad behaviour since "it was different in the 1970s", let's bring ourselves up to speed. It all started when Banks recorded a song "dissing" Angel Haze. Perez Hilton - who apparently is still going - upbraided Banks for doing this. Banks then reacted by going onto Twitter: Omg u should just kill yourself Like for real lol what a messy faggot you are. Even [...]]]> text/html 2013-01-02T14:29:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4698171/azealia-banks-bbd/
When you approach Azealia Banks's first offering of 2013, "BBD," it has the same hydraulics that you expect from her - dance music trends on hyperdrive, with ruminations on how she feels just that much better than everyone else. The thing that made her famous was a mouthful of vitriol - labyrinthine wordplay that endeared us all with "2123 but eventually became exhausting for some when she continued to cram too many words into the expected coherent 16 bars. But when it came time to stand up to fellow Harlemite Jim Jones, she started enunciating and [...]]]> text/html 2012-11-12T13:46:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4613837/azealia-banks-atlantis-video/
Mermaids figure heavily into the iconography of au courant Harlem-bred dance-rapper Azealia Banks, and never more so than in the new video for "Atlantis," a percolating track from her Fantasea mixtape. In director Fafi 's video, Banks rides dolphins, flexes octopus tentacles, and generally reenacts "Under The Sea" via goofy no-budget CGI. Watch it below. Read More...]]> text/html 2012-09-27T13:44:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4532323/azealia-banks-luxury-video/
Azealia Banks is in the news for a not-great reason this morning: As Pitchfork reports , she's involved in a Twitter feud with Munchi, the producer behind her Fantasea mixtape track "Esta Noche." Munchi is saying that she used the track without permission, then announced plans to release it as a legit commercial single, and Munchi refused, turning down a five-figure payday on it. He's been going in on her on Twitter, and she's responded with "I suggest you shut the fuck up... Seriously." Yikes! But here's a good reason [...]]]> text/html 2012-09-11T18:05:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4500550/stereogums-40-best-new-bands-of-2012/
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to select the rising bands which have connected them, someone wrote a long time ago. Or, something close to that. Here's what we're getting down to: It's that time of year when Stereogum's staff selects the 40 most exciting new* acts of 2012. Once again it's a diverse field, featuring glossy pop groups, gritty rockers with a name built on an acronym that begins with "Fuck it, Dawg," precocious teen rappers of several kinds, a death metal act from New England, and so forth. It's [...]]]> text/html 2012-09-07T14:23:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4492724/the-5-best-videos-of-the-week/
The music-video universe took a bit of a week off this week; Labor Day, I guess, will do that. But there was still plenty of good stuff out this week; the relative scarcity just meant that I didn't have to cut anything deeply awesome to put this list together. Check out this week's list below. Read More...]]> text/html 2012-09-06T18:03:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4491127/azealia-banks-hunters-wythe-hotel-brooklyn-9512/
Azealia Banks's road to success began in Harlem, and her breakout single "2123 is an ode to the city that seems to live in every one of her beats and slyly snarled lyrics. She's moved, though, to Los Angeles, and in her new cover profile in this month's issue of SPIN , she says she never intends to move back to the city that's firmly left its mark on her work. She came back to visit last night, though - across the river from her old home in northern Manhattan to a very different neighborhood - to play a [...]]]> text/html 2012-09-04T12:41:00+01:00 http://elbo.ws/post/4486034/azealia-banks-1991-video/
Here's Azealia Banks's look-heavy clip for " 1991 ," a lively, color-saturated video that could easily serve as a stand-alone Fashion's Night Out promo. Justin Mitchell directs. Watch it below. Read More...]]>