★★★★☆
Four Stars
It has been a long road for Azealia Banks following the release of the all-conquering ‘212’ back in 2011. Since then she’s been signed by indie-label XL, then a major, had her album delayed multiple times, been unceremoniously dropped, and become a pop-culture punch line for her legendary twitter feuds. But now, at last, her debut album Broke With Expensive Taste has arrived as a surprise iTunes release, providing Banks with a chance to demonstrate her artistic vision on a commercial LP.
Unlike Beyoncé’s recent surprise release, which was specially designed to provoke a media-storm of hysteria, I can’t help but feel Banks has pushed out her long-delayed album just to get it over with. Finally following up on the exhilarating promise of her debut, Broke With Expensive Taste is a showcase so assured that it will have even her harshest critics struggling to doubt Banks’ talent, direction, and yes, taste.
Her first full length release since 2012’s Fantasea Mixtape, the album finds Banks with a more eclectic range of influences than the high camp and sea punk styling which typified that witch-hop outing. Ditching her mermaid alter-ego, Banks throws almost anything at the wall, from the salsa on ‘Gimme a Chance’ to ‘Yung Rapunxel’’s metal, the synth pop energy of ‘Ice Princess’, and even the bizarre but fantastic deployment of Carolina beach music on ‘Nude Beach A-Go-Go.’ The most impressive thing is that nearly all of them stick.
It is a testament to Banks’ delivery, flow and presence that she is never lost amongst the album’s diverse production. Broke stakes her claim in the pantheon of hip hop’s most commanding voices as she navigates complex rhythms with her trademark Brooklyn swagger. It also helps that her ear for a solid House track has never been stronger. Most of the musical experimentation occurs in the melodies, leaving Banks to ride the infectious dance beats which have served her and her mischievous delivery so well in the past.
It perhaps isn’t Banks’ fault that nothing else on the album quite matches the immediacy of the ubiquitous ‘212’. You get the sense that she is done with defining her public persona in three minute radio slots. Instead, she uses Broke as a means to establish the range of her abilities, the diversity of her style and the depths of her vulnerability.
So whilst Banks struggles to craft a hit as compelling as those former smashes (though ‘Chasing Time’, with its radio friendly hook does come pretty close) it seems as though, above all, she is content to use this album to reassert herself, while still only 23 years old, as the most exciting and promising enfant-terrible that the rap world has to offer.
With her debut album, Azealia Banks proves that her claim to having “expensive taste” is correct indeed. Yet fortunately, on the strength of the material here, it’s unlikely she’ll remain broke for all that much longer.
