By now, the world understands that Azealia Banks is not perfect. She's offered us plenty of evidence on that score. But she remains uniquely human, and that messy humanity — raw and real and sometimes wrong — is on display as much in her statements to the media and on her Twitter page as in her music. Audiences heard bits and pieces of this on her initial singles and EPs like 1991, but it moved to the forefront on Broke with Expensive Taste, her sharp, poignant and infectious debut album. Released outside of the typical label structure, BWET was a triumph, however short-lived, from an unclassifiable artist of the new millennium. As danceable as it was affecting, the record embodied the sort of charms that we recognized in Banks’ music from the start.
Slay-Z, her latest mixtape featuring production from the likes of Kaytranada and collaborations with Rick Ross and Nina Sky, is not as hard-hitting as BWET, but it still shimmers with Banks’ skill and personality. Banks continues to move further into new territories in her work: "Big Talk" is a hard-hitting and directly trap-influenced slow builder featuring Rick Ross. It's a new sound for Banks, who has distinguished herself both as a vocalist and as a rapper by repurposing a variety of different genres across the decades, most notably the sing-song pop appeal of '90s house. Despite this diversion, Banks is able to make it work, her deft voice snapping and stretching like a rubber band to match the beat and production rather than fight against it.
Still, she continues to double down on her love of ’90s NY house. "The Big Big Beat," one of the best songs on the record, sounds less like a homage to the bright, Top 40 version of the genre and more deeply rooted in the real stuff. It is an underground anthem, one that bubbles under the surface instead of hitting you over the head like "212," but it has the staying power of all her best music.
That is the thing about Azealia Banks: she still puts out consistent work, and each release feels like a well-timed reminder of how good she can be. For all of her questionable tweets or political affiliations, her music still touches on feelings that other artists rarely touch: Consider the sly vulnerability of Broke with Expensive Taste's "Soda," a song that became something of an anthem for misunderstood, creative, emotionally unfulfilled young black women navigating a world that continues to disregard our deepest desires and emotions.
And it is the sort of thing that makes people willing to give her artistic chances. There were very few gut punches as memorable as listening to Broke with Expensive Taste for the first time. And on Slay-Z, there are hints of that power. They don’t shine nearly as bright as her almost flawless debut record, but they keep us watching and listening.
