Azealia Banks - Liquorice: Music Video Review

Whip out your leather chaps, buckle up that stars & stripes patterned bra and keep the children out of the line of verbal fire - Azealia Banks is back with two barrels of swear words, locked and fully loaded.

Whip out your leather chaps, buckle up that stars & stripes patterned bra and keep the children out of the line of verbal fire - Azealia Banks is back with two barrels of swear words, locked and fully loaded. It only takes one phrase to get you remembered, one series of words placed next to each other in a logical order that become sung repetitively by whoever hears it. Listen to Irene Cara when she said 'Remember my name FAME' because sometimes, it really is that easy. One thing I will point out though is phrase selection - not just any one will do. Azealia Banks. She did it. She found her phrase with aplomb. One phrase to rule them all in a haze of dirty 90's house beats. What was it I hear you cry? I think you know already, it's lodged in your cranium somewhere. I would repeat it but I can't; it's like Hermione not being able to say He Who Shall Not Be Named's real name. I'll give you two clues: 1. It involves eating. In fact she's nonchalantly guessing the eating will take place. Soon. Rapidly. Any day now. Tomorrow maybe. 2. It involves a word few mortals would dare to utter in everyday conversation. It is neither pleasant sounding nor does it have any other pleasant sounding rhyming words. There's Shunt. Punt. Runt. Blunt. See? Any positive connotations there? No. No there is not. Yet the magic of Azealia Banks is that, despite the overwhelmingly bleugh-ness of such a phrase, people cannot stop singing it when they hear her debut single 212. It's now commonplace to be mumbling it under your breath in the shower, at the office, waiting for the bus. To quote Chic from the 1970's, 'Young and Old are doing it I'm told' (just singing it, nothing else thank you very much). So how to top such dizzying highs; over to Azealia Banks and Liquorice. She loves her wordplay doesn't she... For starters, you can't argue with the collaborators on this. Rankin is director and has done some top notch music videos before including Kelis - Acapella (tribal spearing, gold body paint, nose rings - the usual), Marina and the Diamonds - I Am Not A Robot (more body paint) and Sky Ferreira - One (light bulbs and high fashion dahhhling). All the styling honours go to Nicola Formichetti who's been a long time collaborator with Lady GaGa so the outfits should be ones to watch assuming it's not more decomposing food stuffs (which will definitely go mouldy if this Western theme is going ahead, Clint Eastwood never wore a poncho of raw fish did he?). Video time? Well of course and we've marched straight into cartoon wild west with an excerpt of 212 (in case you've forgotten all of it's potty mouth credentials). Role call credits and cowboy typography completed it's onto Azealia being patriotic in front of a vast valley. Oh and holding a baseball bat - well she is a New Yorker... Actually, scratch that. She's practically manhandling that bat in a rather sexual fashion. Weren't you in that Benny Benassi video with all the power tools, Miss? http://youtu.be/CPaXn2XR-P8 Away from groping inanimate sports apparatus, we learn a lot about how Azealia would tackle the Wild West if she were there at the time. Namingly she'd get a stunt double to ride around a lot for her (preferably in the sunlight), rack up a nifty nametag in wood (just in case you've forgotten who you were watching) and generally seductively parade about as if she were in an Iceland commercial. Hot dog eating? It's all there plus some overly forceful squeezing; i hope the dry cleaning isn't too much on that star-spangled outfit or Nicola will have to pay a fortune getting those sauce stains out. Ice lolly licking? Also there but I guess it's hot so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Still, did the end of it have to be THAT colour? Wouldn't a nice orange calpyso have sufficed? I feel a bit sick. When not eating food in a potentially inappropriate manner, Azealia also finds time to strut around a toilet paper drenched forest (must have been a uni post-exam party), wear as much leather as the temperature with allow and attach giants horn on top of her head like a viking. More frat party-ness - AWOOGA! CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG! Or something of that description. Still, I wouldn't mess with Azealia especially when she flounting pistols and that meaty baseball bat in my face saying the N word about a gazillion times. She's so hood, she got in a duel with herself. Word. Finally, let's have a little bonfire. Azealia is too G to invite anyone to it mind but maybe it's just so no one sees her in that purple tin-foil outfit. She's totally go up in flames if she's not careful... The song is a glorious house number with all the Banks bite that people will recognise from 212. Sure it's not as instant and doesn't have a line as ridiculously catchy as The Phrase That Shall Not Be Said but you've got to love a female rapper that actually gives as good as she gets. Nicki Minaj has gone full time for the position of pop siren so the path is clear for Azealia to take control (at least on the club/underground circuit). Or at least it was. Sadly this may be one of the last of it's kind (in terms of videos anyway) in light of the news that Azealia doesn't want to be a rapper anymore, just a singer. Why guurl? Don't be Minaj when you've got more going for you as a double threat than anyone else in the music scene. For evidence of her rapping abilities listen to Aquababe, listen to Fuck Up The Fun. Azealia knows how to rap over a killer beat and producers will be (and have been) throwing themselves at her if she keeps her current style. Still she's the 'Liquorice Bitch' as she puts it so maybe I should leave it out before I get clobbered with a baseball bat of my own. Fo Sho.
Contributor
Contributor

Music. Makes The People. Come Together. Yeah (Y) So if you're reading this not because you accidentally stumbled across this article on way to the Film section then WELCOME. I am Josh and I Type Words Relating to Music, Videos To Do With Music & All That Other Stuff Too. Fascinating, isn't it? Amazeballs indeed.....