It's a shame that she's become more known for her opinions than her rhymes, because at the end of the day, the rapper has a tight grasp on her musical message and delivery. That's why Broke With Expensive Taste — which she surprise-released earlier today — is exactly the project that fans were clamoring for, with Banks at her lyrical sharpest and, musically, her most eclectic so far.

Any record with so much build-up should be bound for the coulda-shoulda-woulda-files, but “Broke” is a happy surprise. It’s feisty and forward-thinking, showcasing Banks’s ability to crate-dig for solid beats and her malleable voice, the range of which is as amenable to braggadocio-filled disses as it is to depth-plumbing belting.

Here at last, 'Broke With Expensive Taste' is a cascading flood of madcap imagination. Was it worth the wait? Just about.

The missteps are few, but grave: on "Gimme a Chance," she transitions from bouncy rap to full-blown salsa, complete with Spanish singing, while the retro surf-pop of the Ariel Pink-produced "Nude Beach a Go-Go" confounds. And yet, both merely amplify how creatively combative Banks can be--especially when she focuses that energy into her music.

‘Broke With Expensive Taste’ is one of the most experimental, and best rap debuts, male or female.

While Broke With Expensive Taste doesn’t fully display Azealia Banks’ complete musical greatness that her fans are familiar with, there’s no taking away the fact that it gives pop music in 2014 a much-needed kick in the ass! Since the start of her career, the singer has always had her middle finger pressed firmly in her naysayers’ faces. The only difference now, is that she’s finally let her music do all the expletive-laced talking.

There’s never any time to get comfortable on “Broke With Expensive Taste”; Banks seems to know that we’ve been waiting and now, she’s repaid our patience with a white-knuckle ride inside the mind of an ambitious and over-stimulated young lady. Maybe kids these days don’t have attention spans, but listening to this, you’ll start to wonder if that’s actually a bad thing.

Banks makes a lot of twists and turns throughout the record — perhaps none more jarring than Ariel Pink’s silly surf-rock collaboration “Nude Beach a Go-Go” — and she’s not able to keep them all from becoming unwieldy. Yet her willingness to push those buttons is refreshing. Broke With Expensive Taste exceeds expectations — and not entirely because they were low to begin with.