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| 23-year-old rapper Ice Spice introduced new slang with his 2022 song "Munch (Feelin' U)." Louisa Opalesky |
On a cold, damp afternoon earlier this month, Ice didn't want her spice to be known, so she covered her signature red curls with her long blonde hair wig and wrapped her wig in a pink scarf. Bushwick for adjustment. After a stop at a dentist in London, the rising hip-hop star hopped in a black SUV and headed to Fordham, her road district in the Bronx where she grew up.
At first, she was silent in the car. Pink Phone Her Dutch Makes Her Up From Her Bag While Playing On The Stereo.
But by the time her SUV arrived in the Bronx, Ice Spice wore her black Prada fleece, her black Balenciaga tights, her black Uggs, and exaggerated her long nails. I painted it with nail polish. , was repeatedly rapping her latest single, "In Ha Mood." with quiet power.
These made her 23-year-old Ice Spice a New York drill, one of her music's most distinctive voices, her pop beloved for both her statement and her style, and her It has become a new touchstone of culture. Became. It's like a poem full of frankness and confidence. While saying.
"I'm naturally very cool and nonchalant about many things," she said.
On Friday, she will release her first EP, "Like..?" This is a collection of her past singles and some new songs that all feel like her work. According to her, the EP's style is a "pop drill."
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| 23-year-old rapper Ice Spice introduced new slang with his 2022 song "Munch (Feelin' U)." Louisa Opalesky |
Unlike many New York drillers her rapper, Ice Spice raps calmly. She's calm, controlled, and almost taciturn as if to pull you in, slightly lengthening each of her lines before she pushes you away again.
"She makes what we call sexy drills," said Nicole Racine, founder of Talk of the Town, a media company that documents New York drill music. "She's sexy, feminine, and not the rough drill we'd expect."
Until just a few months ago, Ice Her Spice didn't have to hide behind a decoy wig, but her busy week in August changed things. First, Drake expressed his admiration for her music, posting a screenshot of his message, then her manager and producer, RIOTUSA (under her Riot name), I told Jet I made a private call in Toronto. I flew to her OVO Fest, his annual festival.
"I probably had $200 on that trip," Riot said, chiming in from the backseat of the SUV.
Ice Spice said she was "crazily broken" at the time and laughed as she recalled the "fake-ass purse" she had.
A few days after the event, she released the song "Munch (Feelin' U)". The song became her true breakout, launching her delicious new slang and establishing her identity with her signature visual: Golden with her curls, bold outfits, intense eyes, and contacts.
"We slept on that record because it was the only non-sampled song we had," Riot said before Zedd based it heavily on his pop hit "Clarity." had released his ten-year-old trance "No Clarity".
But the originality of "Munch" was lucky. Hits that rely on old hits can sometimes feel more accidental than talking about new artists, rather than the durability of old artists.
The reaction, fueled by social media, was instant. "You remember going to the mall the week 'Munch' came out, right?"And a lot of the kids started running up to me, 'Are you a 'Munch' girl?
Before stopping at Capitol her diner for an M&M cookie, she stopped at her St Her Her James, where the video for "Munk" was filmed, to go to the restroom.
Following the success of "Munch," Ice Spice achieved her first financial success when she signed with 10K Projects/Capitol Records. But since handing out Thanksgiving turkeys with fellow Bronx rapper Lil Jay, she expressed a little tiredness the first time she ran up the block she grew up with. I was even more frustrated that I hadn't done it yet.
Isis Gaston was born to a black father and a Dominican mother, but they divorced when she was still a toddler. Inspired by the waves There was no recording until 2021, but a video of her doing the #BussItChallenge caught our attention and went to extremes. I flirted briefly with the viral Did.
"I knew that if I could do it once, I could do it again," she said. "That's when I knew I could be an artist." She sensed an opportunity and hurriedly finished her first song. She began recording more tracks, documenting the process, and eventually releasing trailers for each promotion to build her attention and enthusiasm.
All of her songs to date have been produced by Riot (real name Ephrem Lopez Jr.). The two met while studying communications at the State University of New York at Purchase. Ice was playing spice and volleyball.
Drill found a common language in her songs that didn't shy away from the personal and was lyrically stressed line by line. I also found that writing personal stories came naturally to her. 'There's a cure for that,' she said.
Before "Munch", it was attracting attention, but it was not all positive. "When I first put out something, I got a lot of hate -- content, music, whatever," she said.
Even now she is like a lightning rod. After Social Drake unfollowed her on Instagram after a trip to Toronto, her media circled circles with lewd interest, even from the tiniest bit of information. she said. "We've spoken a few times since then and it's been going great. No beef."
But she's also benefited greatly from online attention. Her fandom still boils down to the name "The Spice Cabinet." Candidate for spices? Munchkin? And she blends seamlessly into the world of memes — Tupac, XXXXXTentacion, Martin Luther King Jr., Princess Diana, and her lyrics ("If I'm Already Chosen, Why lose?") and her float-making split portrait. Popping up in a tweet and caption, she said she's ripping "Princess Her Diana" from her new EP after seeing a meme calling her this generation's Princess Diana on the internet late last year. I decided to record.
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| "I like to hear catchy stuff and I always think about captioning this, so I've just started thinking of crazy captions," said Ice Spice. . Louisa Opalesky |
"Who wouldn't want to be a princess?" she said softly, thinking she knew everyone else as if to admit that she had known for some time.
In perhaps the ultimate sign that pop has assimilated her culture, virality effortless channeler Lil Nas X dressed as her in her "Munch" video for Halloween, donning a neon tank top and wild wig. I wore I wore
"Hair is iconic," she admitted.
Racine's story of the town says, "She takes sexy drills into the mainstream. She opens more doors. But Drills, the aesthetic that brought Ice Spice's initial fame, is probably a convenient transit." station.
"She's a pop star," said Riot. "People say they train just to corral people."
Ice Spice agrees that her aspirations go beyond that. "I think I got over it," she said. "I want to be a mainstream artist. I need to go beyond one subgenre."
Back in her car, she scrolled through both her new music from her EP and the verse she recorded for Pink's Pantherless remix of "Boy's a Liar." . She's over her drill into the world, but she's unlikely to be the last.
"I tried Detroit beats. I tried to trap them. I tried hyper-her pop," she said. we are discussing
On the way home from the Bronx, she stopped by her shopping mall in Elizabeth, New Jersey, so she and Riot could purchase her True Religion jeans for her upcoming video shoot. -At training, New York rap spurred a national conversation.
"I feel like I've never experienced a moment of death," she said. ”
For the first time in a day, I may have betrayed a little excitement. ”
