Review Summary: In Iggy's defense
In My Defense is Iggy Azalea's second studio album, and the follow-up to her 2014 debut
The New Classic. During the five years between the releases of these two albums, Iggy left Def Jam Records, signed with Island Records, left Island Records, then claimed to be an independent artist while still signing and cancelling deals with various other record and production companies. While all of this was happening, music media outlets, which generally don't favor Iggy, were reporting on these events, mixing fact with fiction at their leisure as most tabloid reporters do. After creating her own label and establishing some semblance of stability in her career, Iggy concocted her defense, in the form of her sophomore album.
The first two tracks of Iggy's defense,
Thanks I Get and
Clap Back, are aggressive, retaliatory tracks aimed toward the media outlets and the general hater-base who have been bashing Iggy since her rise to fame. A few talking points discussed are the rumor that Iggy was dropped by her label, Iggy is trying to look and act like she's black, and claims that Iggy is racist. Through her lyrics, she dismisses these claims and expresses her frustration and annoyance at their frequency. The stern, dark, bass-heavy trap beats produced by J. White make for the perfect background noise for Iggy to spit bullets over.
But while the style of the beats remains consistent throughout all twelve tracks, a lyrical shift begins on track three, which was the first single from the album,
Sally Walker. This track, the chorus of which is a ghettoized earworm, is about dancing, twerking, and/or stripping for income, as well as dismissing the ratchets who judge you for it. It's the more sexual themes like these, as well as the "I'm getting rich doing it and you're not" rhetoric that are Iggy's bread and butter, and thankfully the rest of the album sticks to them. It even gets really raunchy on the last two tracks
Just Wanna and
Pussy Pop, which are about simply wanting to have to sex with people, and thoroughly describing the act of sex from Iggy's perspective, respectively.
I want to mention the guest spots on
In My Defense, because they go four for four on their effectiveness in their respective songs.
Hoemita sees trap favorite Lil Yachty riffing almost non-stop about his "bitch named Dakota" who's "kinda older" in a drone that matches the darker tone that pervades the earlier part of the album. Kash Doll brags about her ass and her money on
*** It Up in a way that makes her seem like soul sisters with Iggy.
Big Bag features underground female rapper Stini delivering a verse about other girls being copycats, with a flow that sounds like a detached emo girl who is rapping for fun.
Freak of the Week sees Juicy J being hilarious as usual, rapping about how he has a ho for each day of the week.
When a romantic relationship ends, the best form of revenge you can take after the initial fallout is to keep living your life to the fullest, while showing your ex that what they do from then on does not affect you. Iggy's defense follows a similar approach: while she uses the first two tracks as a means of venting about her issues over the previous several years, she then proceeds to not dwell on it, and go back to doing what she does best, which is rapping about her ass. In my personal opinion,
Thanks I Get and
Clap Back are the two weakest tracks on the album, while the rest of the album is catchy, sexy, and fun. Defense, successful.
