Originally posted by Noisey

The first time I listened to Broke With Expensive Taste, I was stuck by how much the album felt like the Azealia Banks we’ve come to know so well (perhaps too well) over the past three years. For one, the album is good—really good. In fact, it is one of the best albums of the year and one of the only works to truly challenge me as a listener. This year has been one of disappointments with long-established artists releasing work that feels like a step back or a step to the side rather than a step forward.

BWET was the opposite, and thank goodness for that. It is weird and layered and fun. Azealia Banks’s music, from the onset, has defied classification, and BWET only highlights this differentiation. When the world says, “This is who we think you are,” Azealia doubles back and refuses to agree. When people say they want another “212,” what they really mean is that they want another dance-floor banger, another reckless night, another good time, another faceless artist to soundtrack their lives. But what they got was and is Azealia Banks. Those instantly memorable lines (“I guess that **** getting eaten”; “Imma ruin you ****”) didn’t sprout in a vacuum. It took a while for many people to understand and appreciate “212.” It was and is groundbreaking. Azealia Banks’s next “212” won’t sound like “212.”

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For black women, you are either terrible and awful and ugly, or you are righteous and pure and sanitary. We are not given gray areas or leeway or room to breathe. We are not allowed imperfections with greatness. We are not given room and time to grow. We must know ourselves and how to act in the world immediately. We are not free to be.