“Fancy” - Iggy Azalea ft. Charlie XCX

“Fancy” is linear. The “hey!” chants correspond with the rhythm. The rhythm is sustained in a layered and sequential way, buoying a song that spreads like thick jam. The reference to Clueless is not lost on viewers– it’s pastiche at its funniest and most flattering. But the abundance with which “Fancy” seems to give, culturally and creatively, only resembles perpetuity. While you may laugh and feign nostalgia for the 90s and even trust Iggy Azalea, that trust is built on lies, black cool and Charlie XCX’s talent.

Iggy, as Cher Horowitz, wants us to know she’s the realest, she likes many brands of alcohol and she’s in the Murda Bizness, among other things. Addressing her classmates from the debate podium, Iggy raps, “Taking all the liquor straight, never chase that/ Rooftop like we’re bringing ‘88 back.” The year 1988 is not a year Iggy personally lived through. The year is in reference to Nas’ “Made You Look,” and the reference comes from a context psychically and aesthetically removed from McMansion parties and yellow plaid skirt suits. In the mouth of Nas or even Mickey Rocks of Cool Kids fame, the bringing back of 1988 is fettered to the dance parties on project housing rooftops and the dance known as “the rooftop” that came before the Dougie, the Soulja Boy dance, et al. In the mouth of a 90s Australian kid with a knockoff transATLantic accent and a tongue firmly planted in her cheek, bringing eighty-eight back could have Hitler connotations or it could just be another thing Iggy is borrowing to imbue the black cool and the Americanness she lacks.

Filling a space carved out by the dialectical tension between experience and observation, Iggy Azalea– a self-described Bad Bitch– is indeed so fancy. Iggy spins fantastic and revelatory verse, using every trick and trope of hip-hop: being real, drinking, having money and haters. Her best lyrics demonstrate excess both in terms of opulence and verbosity like when she raps, “Swagger on super, I can’t shop at no department/ Better get my money on time, if they not money, decline/ And swear I meant that there so much that they give that line a rewind/ So get my money on time, if they not money, decline.”  

The hook, sung by Charlie XCX, hankers ‘Fancy” with a pop sensibility that reinforces the Diva as an institution. Just like Ariana Grande is our new Mariah Carey, Charlie XCX is our new Gwen Stefani. Charlie sings, “I’m so fancy, you already know/ I’m in the fast lane, from LA to Tokyo/ I’m so fancy, can’t you taste this gold?/ Remember my name, ‘bout to blow” believably. Only a Diva can make us believe, in the cultural moment, that “Yeah, keep turning it up/ Chandelier-swinging, we don’t give a fuck” will never not sound cool because Divas are matryoshka dolls of authenticity. Inside every Diva is another Diva and another Diva and another Diva. Bad Bitches are shells constructed by the male gaze with the help of Instagram filters. A hard and fast Bad Bitch-Diva dichotomy doesn’t exist, but we can glean from the video that Charlie is in fact the realest.