ICYMI: Azealia Banks Gives The Realest Interview of 2015

"The race thing always comes up, but I want to get there being very Black and proud and boisterous about it. You get what I mean? A lot of times when you're a Black woman and you're proud, that's why people don't like you. In American society, the game is to be a nonthreatening Black person. That's why you have Pharrell or Kendrick Lamar saying, 'How can we expect people to respect us if we don't respect ourselves?' He's playing that nonthreatening Black man shit, and that gets all the white soccer moms going, 'We love him. Even Kanye West plays a little bit of that game--'Please accept me, white world.' Jay Z hasn't played any of those games, and that's what I like."

Listen. Azealia Banks may be crass, uncouth, and borderline ridiculous most of the time but that's because she's young and doesn't know how to express her thoughts in a fashion in which they can be coveted and respected. Be that though it may but her truths? When conveyed appropriately? Man! She hits the nail on the head! No matter what you have to respect that and give her props when she deserves it. I read her interview in Playboy and I have to admit, though she expressed herself in a rather harsh manner, I was here for her and what she had to say. Check out some excerpts from her interview: 

ON BEING BLACK IN AMERICA: "When you rip a people from their land, from their customs, from their culture--there's still a piece of me that knows I'm not supposed to be speaking English, I'm not supposed to be worshiping Jesus Christ. All this shit is unnatural to me. People will be like, 'Oh, you're ignorant because you don't speak proper English.' No. THis is not mine. I don't even want this shit, so I"m going to do whatever the fuck I want with this language. I'm going to call you a fag or a cracker or a bitch." 

ON REPARATIONS: "Y'all motherfuckers still owe me reparations! [laughs] That's why it's still about race. Really, the generational effects of Jim Crow and poverty linger on. As long as I have my money, I'm getting the fuck out of here and I'm gonna leave y'all to your own devices." 

ON HER HATE FOR AMERICA: "I hate everything about this country. Like, I hate fat white Americans. All the people who are crunched into the middle of America, the real fat and meat of America, are these racist conservative white people who live on their farms. Those little teenage girls who work at Kmart and have a racist grandma--that's really America." 

ON BEING AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST: "Even though I've always made really cool stuff, I did it with a little bit of a pop sensibility because I was signed to a major label. That's why you have songs like 'ATM Jam' and 'Chasing Time' that are more pop. But now I don't have a label to answer to. All the ideas I'm having are fucking cool and abstract and crazy and dope." 

ON HER ABUSIVE PAST: "It started when I was 17. There's something very wrong with a man that age who wants to date a 17-year-old girl. I didn't know how to shave my bush and shit like that. I had a hairy p***y. I didn't know how to wear perfume. I had neon pink barrettes in my hair. And as '212' started to pop off and my career started to happen, he became jealous. He choked me and beat me up, and of course you should not be fucking with a man who puts his hands on you, but I was stupid and young. 

ON WHAT RELIGION SHE IDENTIFIES WITH: "I don't want to say, but I'll tell you about one form of the religion. It's called 21 Divisions. When they brought the slaves over to the Caribbean, they syncretized all their African gods with Catholic saints. So in 21 Divisions there are Black gods and goddesses, and my mother practiced that when I was little." 

That's just a piece of the proverbial cake that is the completely, utterly amazing, and outlandishly candid interview that Azealia gave that can be read in full at Playboy.com, and will hit stands March 20th.

Natasha Marie