Ask anyone to impersonate a teenage girl and they might roll their eyes to the point of retinal detachment and, in the voice of a catatonic zombie, say, “OMG, like, totally.” Once dubbed one of the UK’s “most annoying filler words,” “like” is the bane of the existence of snooty grammarians and Daily Mail editors: Its association with frivolous, vapid femininity makes it an easy target. For Ice Spice, “like” is less of a filler and more of a mouth gag. Like, shut up when she’s speaking. Aptly titling her debut EP Like..?, the Bronx rapper has the air of a girl who comes to class with nothing but a tube of lip gloss yet makes the dean’s list every year. A velour tracksuit in a subgenre of Nike Techs, she’s the drill Elle Woods.
At a time when everyone is clamoring for the titles of queen and king of rap, a young, often queer, and chronically online community hungry for ’90s cultural nostalgia has dubbed Ice Spice “this generation’s Princess Diana.” At first, her tracks’ unexpected samples and random digs (“We both from the Bronx/So I know that you dirty”) made her the latest scapegoat for everything that’s wrong with hip-hop today. But with her signature emotes, screengrab single covers, and Cabbage Patch doll mane, Ice Spice knows how to capitalize on outrage cycles and internet thirst. The 23-year-old’s goofy antics and down-to-earth attitude work well in the era of memes and snippets. Truly for the people and with the people, she funded the recording of her debut with pandemic-era stimulus checks.
Bringing “smoochie,” “maddie,” and “baddie friend” into our cultural canon, she graduated from the Scorsese school of world-building and is currently studying for her master’s at the Azealia Banks school of linguistics. In the 2012 article “They’re, Like, Way Ahead of the Linguistic Currrrve,” journalist Douglas Quenqua noted that “young women serve as incubators of vocal trends.” Ice Spice’s rise provides a case study: For many men, “Munch” now carries the weight of a slur. Her knack for crafting hooks is so diabolical you’ll find yourself not only muttering along but imitating her signature dances to lines like “big boobs and the butt stay plump,” knowing you’re a 28AA cup. Listen past the familiar snippets and she rewards you with clever wordplay: “You was my stitch but it’s not what it seam.”
Sometimes the songs on Like..? are just that: snippets. The area between the exhilarating two bars that populated TikTok For You pages feels like waiting in line for a five-second rollercoaster ride. In an interview with Rap Caviar, Spice revealed that she records tracks spontaneously to avoid self-censorship. Each line can feel like an intrusive thought untethered to a central theme, like when she quickly follows up “How can I lose if I’m already chose?” with “If the party not lit then I’d rather not go.” Halfway through “Bikini Bottom,” she succumbs to a delayed-cue-card delivery that dilutes the track. RiotUSA, who’s produced most of Spice’s music since her 2021 debut, saves the lethargic midpoints with skittering tracks that sound like true collaborations as opposed to premade beats. In just six songs, the duo experiments with the past, present, and future of drill. Even on cartoony instrumentals that at first seem unserious, he maintains the drill ethos with sharp snares, blown-out 808s, and militaristic hi-hats, updating them with Digimon basslines (“Princess Diana”), club beats, and a squiggly Puffy sample (“Gangsta Boo”).
Repping a city of larger-than-life characters like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, JAY-Z, and Lil’ Kim, a borough of loyal and street-savvy Bronxites, and a rap subgenre known for its gritty ominousness, Spice’s chilled and cutesy demeanor stands out. There’s no question her lighter skin expedited and sustained her virality within TikTok’s biased algorithm and the colorism that plagues hip-hop. Her often rudimentary lyrics reflect the brief time she’s had to develop her craft, but as the daughter of an underground rapper, she’s well-versed in hip-hop and specifically drill history. Citing Sheff G as an early influence, crediting Chief Keef as a pioneer, and adopting the late Pop Smoke’s gruff tone in “Acting a Smoochie,” she honors her predecessors but doesn’t parrot. Assume her naïveté at your own peril. She’ll give you a nickname that’ll require decades of therapy.
