Happy Birthday 212
10 years ago, a young black girl from Harlem made a splash on the music scene with an independently released song and music video, 212 by Azealia Banks. I was 20 years old when the song came out and I am 30 now. I look back on that girl, that decade, that video and why she matters to me.
With its catchy. eclectic tunes, it quickly caught on and spread like wild fire between my friends and I during my early college years. We knew every word, we acted out her lanky, swaggy moves from the music video.
I distinctly remember my desktop computer background for at least a year being a black and white photo of Miss Banks leaned over in a baggy sweater and high rise shorts, petting a bodega cat while holding a 40'. I was shook, it was the most NYC picture to ever NYC.
I have never been afraid to march to the beat of my own drum. I command every space I occupy and it causes a lot of discomfort. I immigrated to the US when I was 12 and spent 2 of my formative years running around NYC. When I was 14 I attended High School of Art and Design and joined Gay Straight Alliance because my guidance counselor was attempting to help me assimilate. GA made me feel safe, and free to be myself in a world where I could never quite reconcile ever really feeling seen. They taught me that I didn’t have to fit a mold and I could be whoever I wanted, they dubbed me the ultimate f** hag.(Shoutout to Alex, Kapish, and Edmye). A bunch of Queens born queer rascals who very much shaped who I am today.
I moved to LA the year after I met them with a strong sense of my identity but everywhere I turned, I received messaging questioning that identity:
“why do you act like a white girl?”
“why do you only listen to white songs?”
“why do you sound like a valley girl?”
Fast forward to September of 2011, a young, dark skinned, gemini queen burst onto the scene with her incredible song beaming with: Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent. I could not get enough of her. She looked, acted, sounded, and talked like me. I wanted to be her and I thought she was me. Hell our birthdays were only a week apart. It was the first time I understood what it was like to truly want to be just like a celebrity, because her and I probably wear the same foundation shade. It was the first time I saw myself represented in media.
Azealia was not a caricature of how black girls were supposed to dress or act like. She was a new ingenue making her mark on the scene with something to say, demanding to be heard. Her first single 212, a tribute to a city I tied so much to my identity, that shaped so much of who I am. And the song was good, DAMN GOOD, still one of the greatest releases of my lifetime.
The visuals in the accompanying music video where electrifying. I watched it on repeat every day for a year never skipping a moment or a beat. If we hung out between 2011 and 2013 we watched that video together. If we dated, I made you learn every move in the choreography. I remember countless drunken nights screaming “imma ruin you cunt” “I guess that cunt getting eaten” or throwing my drunken, limp self around trying to recreate the visuals of the iconic drop in the song “what you gonna do when I appear, when I premiere?”.
Since 2011, I have been a loyal fan, from the Fantasea days at the Wiltern in Los Angeles to countless festivals where she has come to slay! I don’t know that I have witnessed a better performer in my lifetime. In all her tours, I have never seen Azealia employ a big stage production because she simply doesn't need to. Her presence when she starts belting into a microphone is unmatched and unparalleled. All she needs is a kick ass body suit, her signature thigh high hooker boots, and a long ass straight, pressed wig.
Its been 10 years of fun, entertainment, self discovery, and the ugly truth about how the media doesn’t know what do with young black women marching to the beat of their own drum.
Since 212 premiered, Azealia has been embroiled in all kinds of controversy. Her yemaya rituals no longer represent who I am today (ironically I am ethnically Yoruba and her rituals celebrate the incredible female Orishas from my tribe so I cant even be mad at that). She taught me to BELIEVE WOMEN before it became a buzzword when she publicly accused Russell Crowe of assault. I typically agree with her radical messaging but want no parts of her delivery. I have watched act out because she’s imperfectly human. I have watched her be chewed up and spit out by the toxicity of the music industry. She has been cancelled and uncancelled and yet she perseveres. She is still making and performing incredible music and none of her contemporaries hold a candle to her.
While I don’t always agree with her actions, I will never turn my back on her and she will live on in my memory as nothing short of LEGENDARY.
