Azealia Banks - Broke With Expensive Taste

Now there's a title I didn't think I'd ever get to write.

Following the career of Azealia Banks these past three years has been stressful, so it's impossible to imagine how Ms. Banks must be feeling right now. The feuds were often childish and needless, the musical-chairs game with her labels grew tiresome by the start of 2013, and the constant threats to leak her own album were never followed through. It was often quite easy to forget the talent that was bubbling away underneath all of the drama, and all of the pushbacks in the world - it turns out - haven't had much of a bearing on the impact of Broke With Expensive Taste. It sits quite comfortably at a strong 4/5 on most critics' reviews, whilst her contemporaries fling themselves carelessly at whatever's popular and likely to chart at expense of their capabilities. 

Clearly, the feud with Disclosure did not put Banks off her love of the UK's surging house scene. Most of Broke With Expensive Taste finds her riding behemoths of beats that still, somehow, seem limp and slow behind her delivery. Opener 'Idle Delilah' doesn't quite hose us down with the italo-disco beats just yet, but it does give Banks free reign to let loose her unique, playful side over a free and easy maelstrom of metal drums. On first listen - admittedly through the pretty shitty speakers on my phone - 'Gimme a Chance' sounded like five different songs playing at once; but altogether they make a fantastic, epic jam session. The switch up to a bit of a salsa towards the end is a fun surprise, too, and seems to be a fan favourite. Mine straight from the first listen, though, was the deliriously catchy sample on 'Desperado', a track whose lineage can be directly traced from early UK garage, and stands as evidence that maybe that Disclosure track would've worked after all. One that grows from strength to strength with each listen, too, is 'JFK', her only guest spot on the album literally introduced with storm clouds. A tune that makes you want to dig out those old Ridge Racer games on your PS1, it's essentially 212 filtered through the dark backrooms of an underground club, complete with a hazy interlude.

We're then chucked a handful of relatively old Azealia material. Obviously, '212' needs no introduction and quite solidly stands as a contender for the greatest song of the current decade - even today there's still a deadly punch behind her more stand-out refrains ("I guess that kunt gettin' eaten") - but others are convincing arguments as to why her career's promise was starting to fade by 2013. 'Wallace' has a pretty charming chorus and displays Banks at her most fluent, most bewitching flow ("Bitch you know that nigga in the sugar-pop lotto / He was on her Twitter, but he never got followed / I’ma chin-up with that win, I get the yen and pop bottles!"), but otherwise jumps around with little to say. 'Heavy Metal and Reflective', too, beyond its gritty industrial beat, finds Bank at her most incoherent and blurred, whilst later on 'Luxury' just thumps about pretty uneventfully. Thankfully, 'BBD' is a wiser inclusion; an energetic, whistling and rattling trap beat that lends a more menacing tone to Banks' delivery. threatening to steal your men and women ("tits out with your wife, nigga/ i'm bringing out the dyke in her/ xoxo fine /  scissor-sister, 69").

The surest attempt at another hit single seems to be 'Ice Princess', a hallmark of rap/pop hits with its nursery rhyme cutesy facade just about covering its more jagged and frightening edges - that is until the mother of all eurodance choruses (courtesy of Morgan Page and vocalist Angela McCluskey) is revealed, in all of its Ke$ha glory. Those earlier storm clouds reappear in the intro to 'Yung Rapunxel' and you can't say it's not a fair warning; the album's angriest, darkest chunk features Banks literally screaming at us through a megaphone. For me, the verses are still too quietly spoken and get a little bit lost in the furore, but the chorus and bridge certainly make up for it. A cleansing wall of distortion refreshes the palate for 'Soda', a markedly contrasting bit of fun that's far too summery for a surprise November release, but we'll overlook that for now and dance. Third single 'Chasing Time' sounds more like a single you'd hear from Jes Glynne, Katy B or other such UK chart staples; a bubbly, popping track that should prove a hit in next year's festival circuit.

It seems fitting that a reworking of an upcoming Ariel Pink track should find its way onto Broke With Expensive Taste, given that he seems to have inherited Azealia's penchant for pointless, childish celebrity spats that make one's enjoyment of their talents just that little bit more problematic; 'Nude Beach a Go Go' is probably a lot mroe charming on his side of the fence, where here it's just a strange little interlude. The final misses are equally divisive: 'Miss Amor' is a bombastic spiritual successor to 212 in terms of her vocal tones and bold, brash beats, whilst 'Miss Camaraderie' says and delivers in five minutes what three could suffice.

There's nothing about Broke With Expensive Taste that screams tags 'emotional vulnerability' or 'troubled childhood' or 'anger management' like most rap debuts seem to, and yet the album provides far more talking points and enjoyment than others, too. It might have been 2 years too late, but it's here now and it's an accomplished, well-arranged LP that will stand the test of time, and hopefully now the first obstacle's out of the way, we can let Ms. Banks' music do the talking again.

Rating: 8.5/10
Highlights: 212 (obviously); Desperado; Chasing Time; Yung Rapunxel; Ice Princess; JFK
Avoid: Heavy Metal and Reflective (and praise GOD that ATM Jam didn't make the cut)

Artwork Watch:  Not something I'd have expected, but then I suppose that's true of the whole album.
For fans of: Twitter feuds, the overall feeling that everything MUST derive from house music, silly costumes.
Up next: Paloma Faith