Iggy Vs. Nicki: The Five Reasons People Want To See Azalea and Minaj Battle

Iggy Azalea’s name was all over the headlines again last week, and not because of the continued success of “Fancy” and “Work.” Instead, the talk was all about whether Iggy caught a diss from another female rap luminary, Nicki Minaj. If you want to know why everybody seems to want Iggy and Nicki to take their beef to record, we’ve got five reasons why.

For the record, there’s currently no public beef between Nicki Minaj and Iggy Azalea. That non-beef came to a broil, though, when Nicki took the stage to accept the Best Female Hip-Hop Artist award at Sunday’s BET Awards. Nicki touted her own “authenticity” and took shots at unnamed rappers that don’t write their own lyrics. She also did this:

What with the whispers that Iggy Azalea doesn’t write her own material – as well as other issues that call Azalea’s authenticity into question – the gossipnets immediately took the speech as a major “shade throwing” incident. Shots fired, as they say.

Both rappers have subsequently come out trying to tamp down the speculation. Minaj took to Twitter, saying that “the media puts words in my mouth all the time,” and noting that she had “congratulated Iggy on the success of ‘Fancy,’ publicly.”

Iggy, for her part, said in an Instagram post that she was “unbothered by anything that ‘happened’ at the BET awards and just feel worn out by everyone trying to make me have wars with people.” Iggy added, though, that she’s not “100% sure” the an Azalea-Minaj beef even exists.

So, Iggy… there’s the possibility that it does exist?

This has been a topic of speculation for months, now, but it’s not too hard to see why.

1. Battling Is Part of the Heart of Hip-Hop

Even if she’s just on the fringes, Iggy Azalea is a part of the hip-hop community, and the hip-hop community loves battles. What’s more, there haven’t been any good battles in hip-hop for some time.

Consider the attention Kendrick Lamar got last August when his guest verse on “Control” set the hip-hop world on fire. Lamar’s verse was received as an unequivocal challenge from one of the best rappers in the game to his peers, and everyone waited to see what kind of response would come. People love battles. Hip-hop itches for battles. The notion of Nicki and Iggy going head to head just might could scratch that itch. But there’s also…

2. A Whiff of Sexism

Our media is saturated with the idea that two women can’t co-exist without some sort of strife between them. Iggy’s emergence on the world music stage brought another big-time female rapper into the spotlight when, previously, there had only been Nicki. The two then would have to battle it out to see if it was Azalea or her rival that would have to go. To paraphrase Nas: There’s One life, One love, so there could only be One Queen.

3. A Dash of Racism

There is definitely a racial component to the controversy over Iggy Azalea. Iggy catches a lot of side-eyed skepticism from many hip-hop fans because she is a white, Australian woman. The fact that Azalea is unabashedly pop in her sensibilities makes people’s Vanilla Ice sensors spike into the red, rightly or wrongly.

Also, Azalea does herself no favors by rapping in a faux-Southern “blaccent.”

“I love the fact that I don’t rap the way I talk,” Iggy said in one interview. “I think it’s completely hilarious and ironic and cool.”

Others think Iggy’s faked accent is grating and silly and idiotic, and it’s almost certain that they’d love to see Azalea “put in her place” by Minaj, who at least comes by her rap accent honestly. And, speaking of “honestly”…

4. There Is the Question of Authenticity

There is a racial component to wanting to see Iggy embroiled in beef, but that may be a bit overstated. The hip-hop community welcomes white rappers. If you don’t believe that, El-P, Eminem, Aesop Rock, Asher Roth, Mac Miller, and a ton of others would like a word with you.

With Azalea, though, the fake accent draws into question her overall authenticity. Add to that the question of whether or not she writes her own stuff, and she starts looking terribly fake overall. Which is fine for a pop act, but won’t help you if you’re looking to garner respect in hip-hop.

Counter that with Nicki’s apparent shade-tossing — “when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it” — and, well, one would hope that Azalea would want to prove her bona fides on record, no? But that actually leads into what we can only suppose is the last reason people want to see Iggy and Nicki beef.

5. They’re Confusing Iggy Azalea with Azealia Banks

Easy enough mistake to make: Azalea, Azealia. One is a pretty talented wordsmith, underappreciated for her clean flow and dirty mouth; the other is Iggy Azalea.

All that’s to say: People clamoring for Iggy Azalea to have beef with Minaj are probably mistaking Iggy for a rapper that can actually, you know, spit. They’re probably thinking that beef between Azalea and Minaj would be a knock-down, drag-out brawl. They have probably forgotten that, when put up alongside rap greats Kanye West and Jay-Z on the track “Monster,” Nicki managed the best verse on the song. And that leads us to one last thing we want to say about the possible Azalea-Minaj beef and-or battle…

It shouldn’t happen.

It would be no fun to see Nicki beating up on Azalea for one or more songs. Well, it would be fun, but hearing Azalea’s attempts at a response would be less fun. Fortunately, this thing looks more likely to stay confined to the headlines, unless Iggy or Nicki comes out with a verse that mentions “other female rappers.” Then we can look for it to spring up all over again.

[Lead image via Rucuss.]