Label battles, Twitter rants, conspiracy theories: the Harlem rapper finally tells the tale behind her long-awaited debut
On the afternoon of November 6th, Azealia Banks hit send on a tweet to her 523,000 followers: “Voila!!!! Here it is…” Nearly three full years after sharp-tongued single “212” made her an overnight star, the 23-year-old Harlem rapper-singer was finally releasing her long-delayed debut album, Broke With Expensive Taste. “My heart was pounding,” she says now. “I was sitting at my dining table with my head-wrap on, in my panties and a T-shirt, with my iPad. It was just happiness and relief and yes, yes.”