Ice Spice has described the year and a half between “Bully Freestyle” and “Munch” as taking “forever,” but things have moved a little faster since her breakout single: trending on TikTok, charting on Billboard, PinkPantheress collab, Nicki Minaj collab, Barbie soundtrack placement, Taylor Swift collab, four Grammy nominations. All of this has happened on the back of startlingly little music—last year’s Like..? EP essentially tripled the size of Spice’s discography with its 11-song deluxe version—but those songs have generally pointed towards a smoother, more emotive strain of NYC hip-hop, equally influenced by the Bronx and Top 40. Whether barrelling through a soul drill beat in her On The Radar freestyle or swooping and floating in AutoTune over the sparsely whirring “be a lady,” Ice Spice has mixed boilerplate tough talk with tossed-off vulnerability, positioning herself as relatably aspirational (or aspirationally relatable).
Where Ice Spice has so far been happy playing the wide-eyed protagonist of a raunchy teen movie, Y2K! suggests that perhaps she’s been waiting to get mean this whole time. Save for a pair of DayGlo singles, these diabolical tracks thump, roil, and seethe their way into testing the limits of your subwoofer. Gone are the coyly romantic maneuverings of “Boy’s a liar pt. 2” and “Gangsta Boo;” ditto the softened ambient grooves of “In Ha Mood” and “Actin a Smoochie.” Following in the footsteps of “Munch (Feelin’ U)” and “Deli,” the instrumentals on her debut album are abrasive and unapologetic, and Ice Spice attacks them with her most dynamic vocals to date: whispering and barking, shouting and sneering. Having earned her pop laurels, Ice Spice comes across as totally uninterested in convincing her unbelievers or even feeding her fans: She just wants to drill.
Incredibly, Y2K! succeeds even though her much-maligned “lyricism” has only gotten worse. Ice Spice has always been able to sell groan-inducing punchline bars (“I’m standing on shit like a floor mat” or “He eat it up like Pac-Man”) through committed delivery, but her fixation on a new nickname pushes the limits. Scatological rhymes are pretty blase for hip-hop, but “I’m Miss Poopie but I never smelt” and “I’m Miss Poopie like I need a diaper” are the sort of claims that would get you laughed out of daycare. Spice has said that she wants her lyrics to be “super simple” and “digestible,” but that can veer into insipid repetition, whether on interminably chanted hooks (“Oh Shhh…”) or recycled rhyme schemes (“clappers” and “slappers” is a go-to). Three-quarters into the album, she throws off the clunker, “Bitches switchin’ but they wasn’t trans.”
Ice Spice has never been much of a lyrical rapper, but these moments are extra frustrating on Y2K! because they distract from a genuinely exciting and ambitious album. Individually, any one song here could be analogized and explained. This verse shows the Nicki Minaj influence (“Phat Butt”), this beat sounds like the Opium label (“Plenty Sun”), this track lowkey gives Kay Flock (“Gimmie a Light”). Collectively, this album sounds like nothing her peers could make, swerving from one sonic inspiration to the next. Even when bars are fumbled, Y2K! finds its footing thanks to Ice Spice’s agile and adaptable flow, assembling simple syllables into unusual cadences.
At each turn, Ice Spice stretches her distinctive lower register to new timbres. There’s the 40-grit rasp of “Bitch I’m Packin’,” where Ice Spice wheezes, “His bitch ride it really good but I got better knees,” and the booming Young Chop soundalike “Popa,” where she affects a drawl that brings to mind Young M.A and Bktherula. She sounds incredibly annoyed demanding men sign NDAs before she cheats with them on “Plenty Sun,” then pops up like the demon emoji on “Did It First,” somehow managing to sound even less apologetic about infidelity than Mr. “Lucky for me I deleted the message” Central Cee.
Drawing on drill’s decade-plus history between Chicago, New York, and London, as well as trendier Jersey club and rage beats, Y2K! doesn’t just surprise from track-to-track, but recasts the poppier singles as irregular components of a cohesive aesthetic vision. The silly Mike Dean synth breakdown on “Phat Butt” makes more sense as a Graduation-indebted album intro; tucked near the album’s close, a cheat code Sean Paul sample feels less like nostalgia bait than a flag proudly repping her sample-drill and Caribbean roots. Day one collaborator RiotUSA is behind the boards on every track, and Y2K! is a testament to the strength of their long-running creative partnership. Its weakest moments are those featuring outsiders—Gunna and Travis Scott just get absolutely rinsed here.
What makes Y2K! so instantly memorable is Ice Spice’s refusal to be pigeonholed. Undaunted by the scrutiny of Swiftie affiliation or the pressure of living up to her previous sales peaks, Spice doubles down on the sounds she loves without compromise or quarter. A non-zero number of fans turned this album on because of PinkPantheress and “Karma (Remix)” only to be met with some of the gnarliest 808s on the planet. She already knows her Munchkins love the bops: Now she wants to see them mosh.
