Ask anybody to impersonate a teenage lady and so they would possibly roll their eyes to the purpose of retinal detachment and, within the voice of a catatonic zombie, say, “OMG, like, completely.” As soon as dubbed one of many UK’s “most annoying filler phrases,” “like” is the bane of the existence of snooty grammarians and Every day Mail editors: Its affiliation with frivolous, vapid femininity makes it a straightforward goal. For Ice Spice, “like” is much less of a filler and extra of a mouth gag. Like, shut up when she’s talking. Aptly titling her debut EP Like..?, the Bronx rapper has the air of a lady who involves class with nothing however a tube of lip gloss but makes the dean’s listing yearly. A velour tracksuit in a subgenre of Nike Techs, she’s the drill Elle Woods.
At a time when everyone seems to be clamoring for the titles of queen and king of rap, a younger, usually queer, and chronically on-line group hungry for ’90s cultural nostalgia has dubbed Ice Spice “this technology’s Princess Diana.” At first, her tracks’ sudden samples and random digs (“We each from the Bronx/So I do know that you simply soiled”) made her the newest scapegoat for every thing that’s incorrect with hip-hop as we speak. However along with her signature emotes, screengrab single covers, and Cabbage Patch doll mane, Ice Spice is aware of the right way to capitalize on outrage cycles and web thirst. The 23-year-old’s goofy antics and down-to-earth angle work properly within the period of memes and snippets. Actually for the folks and with the folks, she funded the recording of her debut with pandemic-era stimulus checks.
Bringing “smoochie,” “maddie,” and “baddie pal” into our cultural canon, she graduated from the Scorsese faculty of world-building and is presently finding out for her grasp’s on the Azealia Banks faculty of linguistics. Within the 2012 article “They’re, Like, Means Forward of the Linguistic Currrrve,” journalist Douglas Quenqua famous that “younger ladies function incubators of vocal developments.” Ice Spice’s rise offers a case examine: For a lot of males, “Munch” now carries the weight of a slur. Her knack for crafting hooks is so diabolical you’ll end up not solely muttering alongside however imitating her signature dances to traces like “huge boobs and the butt keep plump,” figuring out you’re a 28AA cup. Hear previous the acquainted snippets and he or she rewards you with intelligent wordplay: “You was my sew however it’s not what it seam.”
Generally the songs on Like..? are simply that: snippets. The world between the exhilarating two bars that populated TikTok For You pages looks like ready in line for a five-second rollercoaster experience. In an interview with Rap Caviar, Spice revealed that she data tracks spontaneously to keep away from self-censorship. Every line can really feel like an intrusive thought untethered to a central theme, like when she shortly follows up “How can I lose if I’m already selected?” with “If the social gathering not lit then I’d quite not go.” Midway by way of “Bikini Backside,” she succumbs to a delayed-cue-card supply that dilutes the monitor. RiotUSA, who’s produced most of Spice’s music since her 2021 debut, saves the torpid midpoints with skittering tracks that sound like true collaborations versus premade beats. In simply six songs, the duo experiments with the previous, current, and way forward for drill. Even on cartoony instrumentals that initially appear unserious, he maintains the drill ethos with sharp snares, blown-out 808s, and militaristic hi-hats, updating them with Digimon basslines (“Princess Diana”), membership beats, and a squiggly Puffy pattern (“Gangsta Boo”).
Repping a metropolis of larger-than-life characters like Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, JAY-Z, and Lil’ Kim, a borough of loyal and street-savvy Bronxites, and a rap subgenre identified for its gritty ominousness, Spice’s chilled and cutesy demeanor stands out. There’s no query her lighter pores and skin expedited and sustained her virality inside TikTok’s biased algorithm and the colorism that plagues hip-hop. Her usually rudimentary lyrics replicate the transient time she’s needed to develop her craft, however because the daughter of an underground rapper, she’s well-versed in hip-hop and particularly drill historical past. Citing Sheff G as an early affect, crediting Chief Keef as a pioneer, and adopting the late Pop Smoke’s gruff tone in “Performing a Smoochie,” she honors her predecessors however doesn’t parrot. Assume her naivité at your personal peril. She’ll provide you with a nickname that’ll require a long time of remedy.
