Biography
Iggy Azalea is an Australian-born rap singer who managed to take a one-way ticket to the top of the world’s Olympus of fame in a short period of time. Her phenomenal success made her the first non-American to reach the top of the Billboard Top chart, and she has been compared to The Beatles on the Hot 100.
Childhood and Youth
Iggy Azalea, whose real name is Amethyst Amelia Kelly, was born in Sydney on June 7, 1990. Soon the family of the future famous artist moved to Mullumbimbi, a small town in New South Wales. There, the couple Kelly owned a plot of 12 acres, on which Iggy’s father built his own brick house.
Young Amethyst’s dad was a painter by training, and his main job was drawing comic books. Her mother supplemented the family budget by cleaning hotels and vacation homes. As Azalea later admitted herself, her father-artist instilled in her a love of art and at the same time a specific “teenage” view of it, which gradually became part of her worldview.
The girl, whose songs and videos are “blowing up” numerous hit-parades, felt a taste for music in her childhood. She dreamed of becoming a famous star one day, and at the age of 14 she started rapping for the first time.
That’s when Iggy put together a band that included two local girls in addition to herself. Azalea enjoyed performing and being a rapper, but she soon left the amateur group, as her partners did not take the young artist seriously.
Personal life
Iggy Azalea is known for the fact that the parameters of her figure can hardly be called classic. The performer has very lush hips and buttocks, which she is proud of, in every way flaunting her figure. The celebrity’s height is 178 cm and her weight is 67 kg.
In photos in a swimsuit, which often appear on the singer’s Instagram page, you can clearly see the cellulite on her hips. In the press it was also often reported that the artist enlarged her breasts, and there were comparisons of the girl’s appearance before and after the alleged plastic surgery.
According to experts, the celebrity has definitely resorted to rhinoplasty: she had her nose made smaller and more graceful. It is possible that underwent plastic surgery and her buttocks. Surgeons noted an unnatural difference between the size of her hips and waist.
Such a procedure was called a Brazilian buttock elevator. But, according to the performer herself, she achieved such a volume thanks to her favorite exercise – squats.
Azalea loves to shock the audience not only with her lyrics, but also with her outfits. At the MTV EMA ceremony in Amsterdam in 2013, the girl had an embarrassing experience: An overly revealing dress and poorly chosen underwear caused her to look not very impressive on the red carpet photo.
The attitude of the hip-hop community toward Iggy Azalea cannot be called unequivocal. For example, usually kind rapper Snoop Dogg once initiated a real scandal on his Instagram page, stating that Iggy, unlike Nicki Minaj, is not worthy of the title of rapper.
A lot of reflection on Azalea in the press is devoted to her personal life. The girl’s boyfriend was rapper Asap Rocky. Then the artist’s lover became basketball player Nick Young, who even made Iggy an offer. But, after learning about her fiancé’s cheating, she broke off the engagement. Then the celebrity spent some time with rapper French Montana.
Later, producer L.J. Curry became her chosen one. But already in the fall of 2018, there was talk about the singer’s new boyfriend – rapper Playboi Carti (Jordan Terrell Carter). The couple’s relationship was getting serious: Six months later, rumors of the musicians’ engagement surfaced.
It was rumored that the artist gave his beloved an engagement ring worth $ 35 thousand. Information about the jewelry of the rap singer emerged after a burglary at her home. The criminals managed to take away jewelry worth more than $ 350 thousand from the house of Iggy and her boyfriend.
Unexpectedly for the fans of the celebrity was her confession in the early summer of 2020 about the birth of her firstborn child. There was talk about Iggy being pregnant six months prior to the announcement: she began going out less and reduced the number of concerts.
Azalea preferred to hide her son from the public, as well as the name of the man by whom she gave birth to a baby. As the singer explained, she will not advertise the life of her child, as well as other children.
Despite the secrecy Iggy in matters of personal relationships, it became known that after the birth of a baby Carter gave her a luxurious gift – an exclusive “Rolls-Royce” worth $ 400 thousand.
Moving to the U.S.
Ever since she was young, Amethyst had been dreaming about moving to America. The aspiring rapper felt like a loser in her country, and she thought things would be different in the U.S., the home of hip-hop.
Iggy didn’t build air castles – she was serious about what she was doing, planning, dreaming about. So soon after failing with her own band, the girl dropped out of school and began helping her mother clean hotel rooms and vacation homes.
After saving enough money to move to the U.S., at the age of 16, Azalea went after her dream. Naturally, her parents would not approve of their daughter moving to another country, and even before she came of age, so she had to go on the sly. She told her mother and father that she was going to America, supposedly on some holiday with a friend. And then she called home and said that she intended to stay in the States.
At first, the young artist lived in Florida, in sunny Miami. Then she briefly moved to Texas, living in Houston for a while, then went to Georgia. After living in Atlanta for a while, Iggy moved to the most “star” region of America – California. She decided to stay in Los Angeles, and it is in this city that she lives to this day.
Just after moving to the USA, the pseudonym Iggy Azalea appeared. According to the artist, her old dog was called Iggy, and in memory of her, the girl often wore a necklace with the name of a pet dear to her heart. But people who didn’t know the whole backstory assumed that Iggy was the name of the owner of the jewelry, and addressed her as such. Gradually the artist got used to such an address and supplemented it with the word Azalea – after the name of the street where she lived in her hometown, getting a widely known pseudonym nowadays.
Music
In 2010, after moving to Los Angeles, Iggy Azalea decided to seriously engage in music making. As a representative of the youth of the 21st century, the girl did not intend to pound the doors of recording studios and throw herself at the feet of music producers. Instead, Azalia started recording her own songs and uploading them to YouTube.
Iggy’s unique style of recitation and her undeniable rapper talent were the reason that her channel on the popular video hosting site was gaining more and more subscribers. In 2011, when she posted her first official music video (for her song Pu$$y), people talked about her as one of the brightest young talents.
The attention of record labels was not long in coming: in 2012 the girl signed a contract with Grand Hustle Records to release her first studio album. The mini-album was called Glory and included the song Murda Bizness and five more songs.
In the fall of 2012 the artist released the second mixtape called TrapGold, and soon after she started working on the new record The New Classic and singles to be released. At the same time she was lucky enough to work with such an artist as Rita Ora. At the beginning of 2013, Rita went on a concert tour in the UK, called Radioactive Tour, and took Azalea with her as an opening act.
This was followed by the successful presentation of the first single from the recorded album – the song Work, a contract with the Mercury Records label, shooting a music video for the new single and even an invitation from the famous rapper Nas to take part in the European part of his tour.
In June 2013 Iggy Azalea performed at the Chime for Change benefit concert in London. Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and many other celebrated artists sang on the same stage.
In the same vein, Iggy’s career developed until 2014, when a breakthrough happened in her creative life: the single called Fancy unexpectedly became a real world hit.
The song blew up many world charts and, more importantly, ended up on the first line of the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart. The singer was the first light-skinned female rapper to top the chart.
The singer owes her next success on Billboard to Ariana Grande, with whom she recorded the single Problem. In the fall of 2014, the talented young artist was also remembered by Rita Ora – they performed the song Black Widow together. Later Iggy’s discography was adorned by a “joint” with Britney Spears Pretty Girls.
In 2016 Azalea planned to release a new album Digital Destruction. She presented several lead singles in support of the disc, these are the hits Team, Mo bounce and Switch. But the singer’s plans changed: the celebrity moved to another label, due to which the work on the record was suspended.
Azalea’s creative career is not without scandals. In 2018, she almost got into a fight with young performer Bhad Bhabie at a party. The incident was reported on her talk show by popular TV host Wendy Williams.
The journalist took the side of the rapper in the conflict, but missed no opportunity to make a few caustic remarks about the Australian. In response to Wendy’s remarks, Azalea posted an angry post on Twitter, which she soon deleted.
The artist’s next record didn’t see the light until 2019. It was called In My Defence and was released following the singles Just Wanna, Sally Walker and Started. The rapper’s collaborators Lil Yachty, Juicy J, Kash Doll and Stini were noted for creating the disc.
During her creative biography, Azalea also proved herself as an actress. She starred in the movie “Fast and the Furious 7”. Iggy played a cameo as the girlfriend of Vin Diesel’s character. It took 16 hours of preparation and rehearsals to shoot her appearance on the screen with a two-line phrase.
Iggy Azalea Now
Now Iggy devotes all his free time to motherhood. Adjustments to the star’s creative plans were made by the quarantine due to the spread of coronavirus infection. One of the latest works of the artist is the video for the track Lola, recorded together with the British singer Alice Chater. Both performers appeared on the screen as patients in a psychiatric hospital.
Discography
2012 – Glory
2014 – The New Classic
2018 – Survive the Summer
2019 – Wicked Lips
2019 – In My Defense
Interesting Facts
Talking about her nationality, Iggy mentions that her family has lived in Australia for over 200 years. The singer’s ancestors came to the continent from England with the ships of the First Fleet. According to Azalea, among her distant relatives were aborigines: the family has a widespread eye disease, which is peculiar only to natives.
In the United States, the future star had only one acquaintance at the time of arrival, his name was Derek. The girl arrived in America on Independence Day.
During Azalea’s romance with A$AP Rocky, the girl got a tattoo on her fingers with the name of her chosen one’s first studio album. After breaking up with the rapper, Iggy crossed out the previous tattoos.