Azealia Banks: "212 (f/ Lazy Jay)"

I can’t decide if it’s a reasonable depression I feel when it’s asserted that the reason Azealia Banks was able to break out with “212” was her uncompromising use of the word “cunt,” or whether it’s something I should pass over gratefully knowing at least that she did blow up in the immediate aftermath of this track hitting the Internet. It’s certainly a very deliberate inclusion, with the verses culminating in “I guess that cunt gettin’ eaten” and “I’m-a ruin you, cunt” respectively demanding a gigantic payoff statement, the rhythm and assonance of both stanzas purposefully loaded to arrive at their profane conclusion. By the time they reach that point, there’s only one final taboo to be crushed between her dentist-white teeth, and Azealia Banks has not arrived just to shy away.

Banks gleefully upturns the superficial respectability of her characters and in a matter of lines has them performing various unspeakable acts at her behest. The addressed audience’s girlfriend, established as dressing only in high-end French designer labels, is warped by Banks’ adolescent hypersexuality: “Now she wanna lick my plum in the evening / And fit that ton-tongue d-deep in.” The man in question is also accused of “cock-a-licking” his way into Banks’ neighbourhood—“You’re gay to get discovered in my two-one-deuce”—-everybody subject to her almost routine subversion of power dynamics, be they gender-, sexuality- or race-related. This is paused for only one solitary moment of reflection, the song’s bridge suspended with the gravity of the beat conspicuously absent. Some interpret the section to be a further dig at Nicki Minaj, but it seems to make sense in the context of its contrast with the previous verses to be applied quite personally to Azealia herself: “Why you procrastinate girl? / You got a lot but you just waste all yourself / They’ll forget your name soon / And won’t nobody be to blame but yourself.” The line speaks intimately of her fear that her euphoric, ultra-modern style is too thin to be lasting; her perceptive fear speaks powerfully that this won’t be the case.

In actuality, barring the giddy exuberance which permeates the track with every twist and turn, Banks’ status as a newcomer proves tricky to marry with her assured sound. That, more than anything, is why it surprises me that the attention she quickly garnered was attributed reductively to her filthy vocabulary: were the word “cunt” to be swapped out for something less remarkable, there would remain an abundance of reasons for “212” to become as wildly popular as it has done. Banks has flow, charisma, and a concrete identity with relation to her gender, free sexuality, and area code-specific provincial ties. These all directly speak into the defining, foundational hook made up simply of “I was in the 212” and spiralling into the other hook in the first verse, itself ancillary to the colossal other other hook, where the bridge is consumed by the beat and 20-year-old Azealia winds up announcing that “that shit been mine” as if she’s done it for a decade. “You can see I been that bitch since the pamper” is about the best explanation we’ve got as to how she sounds like she really has.