Azealia Banks

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As well known for her music as for her proclivity for controversy, Azealia Banks makes genre-non compliant tracks that bend rap, house, indie, and whichever other styles she approaches around her uncompromising star presence. Banks broke through in 2012 with her amped-up track “212” while still unsigned. Her debut album Broke with Expensive Taste arrived in 2014, and Banks continued down a chaotic path of public relations from there while consistently delivering artistically bold mixtapes, and attention-grabbing singles like 2021′s “Fuck Him All Night” and 2023′s “Dilemma.” Azealia Banks was born in New York City in 1991. She became involved with theater and acting at a young age, and had roles in off-Broadway productions before becoming disheartened with acting in her late teens and switching her focus to music. In 2008, she began releasing original songs online under the name Miss Bank$, with a Ladytron-sampling track entitled “Seventeen” attracting the attention of XL Recordings. XL signed Banks to a development deal and she began working with producer Richard Russell, but the two quickly had creative differences and Banks cut ties with both Russell and the label. Banks floated for a few years, uploading videos of herself performing new material (including a cover of Interpol’s “Slow Hands”) and spending time in Montreal before returning to New York. In September of 2011, she self-released her first song under her given name, the uptempo rap/house/club hybrid “212.” The song’s infectious energy and hyperconfidence made it a charting hit in several countries, and signaled Banks’ arrival in the public eye. Though she released “212” without the help of a label, she connected with Interscope/Polydor for the release of her 1991 EP in May of 2012, and followed that with mixtape Fantasea a few months later. Label issues held up the release of her debut studio full length Broke with Expensive Taste, but the album finally arrived in November of 2014 to great critical acclaim. Her output from that point forward would be staggered and often clouded by either clashes with label representation or her overwhelmingly outspoken public persona. Amid squabbles with other artists or a series of problematic social media rants, Banks released mixtape Slay-Z in 2016, EP Icy Colors Change in 2018, 2019 mixtape Yung Rapunxel: Pt. II, and multiple new singles that entertwined rap, EDM, house, trap, and other unlikely combinations. ~ TiVo Staff