Iggy Azalea is one of hip hop’s most exciting new artists, as well as one of the genre’s most unexpected success stories. Her rise to prominence is notable not only for what seems like its immediacy, but for how infrequently someone like her makes it to the top. If you’re not keeping up to date on your rap culture or much into top 40 radio, you should know that she is not your typical hip hop star.

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Making a name for yourself as a woman and hip hop is laudable enough, forget the fact that she is a white, blonde, Australian woman. In a genre dominated almost exclusively by African American men she sticks out like a statuesque thumb.

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In fact, women are so few and far between in the field that the Grammys had to discard their separate category, which many genres had up for years.

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In addition to her album’s success, just this past charting week she also became the first woman in hip hop to have two simultaneous hits in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100. It is rare for any artist to achieve such a feat, let alone a female rapper.

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Iggy isn’t the first woman to find success in the genre, but she is the latest and currently the only one representing the gender on the charts. Not only has Minaj been oddly quiet for months, she has said she will no longer be releasing radio-ready pop/hip hop blends, instead going back to her pure rap roots, leaving a void to be filled by none other than Iggy.

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While this is all happening very quickly for her in America, she has actually been honing her craft for a decade now, first rapping at the age of 14.
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She has actually had four top 20 hits in the UK, and is just beginning (oh? ) the promotion of “The New Classic”.

With so much buzz–and not to mention measurable success–Iggy Azalea is poised to be this year’s breakout music star.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcin...-blonde-woman/

Originally posted by SebaMonster

This is news to me.