Iggy Azalea still shunning Macklemore in lyrics feud
Iggy Azalea is still not speaking to Macklemore following their feud over his lyrics.
Iggy took exception to a line in the Canadian hip-hop star's song with collaborator Kevin Lewis, White Privilege II, which name checked her while criticising the appropriation of black culture by white musicians.
Macklemore, real name Ben Haggerty, admits that the female rapper
hasn't spoken to him since the row.
"I haven't talked to her," he told Billboard.com. The pair had been
friends for over a year.
On the track, Macklemore rapped, "You've exploited and stolen the
music, the moment/The magic, the passion, the fashion, you toy
with/The culture was never yours to make better," adding, "You're
Miley (Cyrus), you're Elvis (Presley), you're Iggy Azalea/Fake and
so plastic, you've heisted the magic."
After the record's release in January (16), the Fancy singer
responded angrily on Twitter, writing, "He shouldnt (sic) have
spent the last 3 yrs (years) having friendly convos (conversations)
and taking pictures together at events etc if those were his
feelings."
Although Macklemore has insisted his lines focused on his status as
a white rapper and weren't an attack on his former friend, he
wishes he'd reached out to her before he made the song public.
"Iggy and I came up together," he says. "We were on the XXL
(hip-hop magazine) Freshmen cover together. There's enough of a
relationship that I should have let her know beforehand. And I
didn't do that."
Despite the controversy over its lyrics, White Privilege II did win
Macklemore new admirers among African-American civil rights
activists.
"It's powerful," DeRay McKesson, a leader in the Black Lives Matter
movement, tells the music publication. "It gives voice to a set of
issues and nuance around the issue of white privilege."