Iggy Azalea officially cancelled her upcoming arena tour with a late-breaking Friday announcement. This won’t come as a huge shock to those who have followed Iggy’s adventures here. We didn’t cover the Change.org petition that called for a retraction of Iggy’s Billboard “best rap” award because it felt like overkill. Iggy’s already been attacked by the music industry, so why pile on?
Iggy has displayed plenty of her own questionable attitudes. She believes that she’s an authentic rapper who is “actually good.” Iggy thinks people dislike her for her talent, but that’s not the case. Rap music fans (and artists) don’t appreciate her appropriated accent. Even worse, the girl cannot freestyle rap at all. People don’t understand what she says without autotune.
The last time we spoke of Iggy in an artistic sense (not about her plastic surgery), the pop-rapper had postponed her tour after refusing to do publicity. I felt bad for Iggy because her press-shy attitude followed a body shaming episode. She quit social media, which would affect any contemporary recording artist’s career. But Iggy explained her tour issues away as perfectionism. She told Billboard, “It is bumped back because I am a psychopath. It is my first arena tour, so it’s a big undertaking and I’m doing a lot of the creative direction, which I do for everything.”
Billboard now reports that Iggy’s tour is definitely cancelled:
Iggy Azalea has canceled her The Great Escape Tour. An email was sent out to ticketholders on Friday (May 29) letting them know the news.
“The Iggy Azalea Great Escape Tour scheduled for this fall has been cancelled and refunds are available at point of purchase,” the email reportedly reads. “There will be a new tour planned around Iggy’s new record to be released in 2016 and we apologize for any inconvenience.
[From Billboard]
Iggy returned to Twitter with a response.
As u may know, the tour is cancelled. I'm so sad and sorry to let my fans down…we'll be back out on the road when the next album is done.
— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) May 29, 2015
Iggy assured her Twitter followers that not all was lost. She’s still appearing at festivals and parades (and Bar Mitzvahs).
The cancellations don't include Pittsburgh Pride, Ottawa Bluesfest, Québec Summer Festival, or Washington State Fair. Still coming to those!
— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) May 30, 2015
The Daily Dot believes the internet killed Iggy’s career. I’m not so sure. Iggy believes that critics pile on her because she’s female, which sounds like a blanket excuse. There are many other reasons why Iggy isn’t accepted by the rap community.
Here’s what I’ve been saying all along. Iggy has a bad attitude, and she cannot rap. She appropriates the genre’s culture, and she makes excuses. But the real problem is that all of Iggy’s hit singles are duets. What songs could Iggy possibly perform on this tour? She could do her own solo songs in a club setting, but arena settings demand more.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet & WENN
It sounds like she knows she can’t do it.
It’s definitely the tude that killed her. Why not practice some humility? When people get criticism then cry “you’re jealous of me!” It really chaps my ass. I would be completely unbothered, and unphased by her presence without that.
It’s like she can’t accept that she’s not the poo, so she runs her mouth about how people are jealous of her. You know who I’m jealous of? Ariana Grande! She is a total tool, but she is so freaking talented. I’m going to keep listening to her music no matter how much she runs around throwing tantrums like a baby. She has an amazing voice. I can’t hit those high notes. You can’t cry jealousy if you don’t have the talent to back it up.
Ariana is a great example! She blew up around the same time as Iggy, and most of her songs are duets too. But Ari has a huge dedicated teen fanbase and nurtures them constantly through social media. She’s also NO where near as problematic as Iggy.
Yet, Ariana is out here selling out arena’s on a world tour and getting stellar reviews. Who knew she could turn this around?
Iggy doesn’t have the fanbase for arenas. Even Nicki Minaj opened for Britney Spears despite having a platinum selling album (something Iggy doesn’t have).
Exactly, you have to have the crazy talent if you want to get away with acting like a jerk. 1 exception: chris brown, he has tons of talent, but I just can’t with his violence, woman beating, threats, verbal/mental abuse of the women in his life. There is a line with the antics.
To me Chris is an example of a man who has talent but has chosen not to capitalize on any of it. Maybe he’s mentally ill, not an excuse but seriously he goes off the wall sometimes. Case in point his threatening a male model on Twitter recently for posing with his ex-girlfriend.
He wants to do the things he’s bad at so badly (another Kanye) and doesn’t put the hard work into the things he’s good at. He can dance and sing. That’s it. He’s terrible as a rapper and his artwork leaves much to be desired. Since he keeps throwing tantrums and putting out such weak music he’ll keep sinking lower till no one cares about him anymore.
I totally agree on Ariana. I don’t know if she is a jerk in real life and I don’t care. She’s that talented. And there is such a dearth of pop artists that can genuinely sing these days.
Somewhere in all the beefs, allegations of jealousy, and culture-vulture controversy (which stuck and became the primary narrative about her because she handled it terribly, as she’s not the first or even the most prominent individual to be accused of that), SHE BECAME UNCOOL. She went from white Nicki Minaj to female Vanilla Ice pretty quickly.
Nobody wants to say they’re a fan of Iggy, even if they like some of her songs, because it’s embarrassing to identify as such. And that is the real problem from the money making perspective because at that point, who is going to buy tickets to a tour she’s headlining?
I think her promoters went out too hard and too fast regarding the arena tour option. She wasn’t at the point in her career where she could headline that type of tour. No big deal, she will do it at some point down the road. People like Kenny Chesney regularly make tons of money on arena tours but they are pros who have been at it for decades. Just because someone like Iggy does a couple of videos doesn’t make her a headliner for something like an arena tour.
FYI, I have never listened to her music.
“No big deal, she will do it at some point down the road. ”
Not necessarily. There’s a fine line from being confident that you’ll succeed to be delusional about the level of your talent and success. And right now, she and her management seem to be more delusional. She doesn’t have the song catalog, nor the true popularity, to headline an arena tour, especially at the prices they were charging.
Her future success isn’t guaranteed, even if she gets a better attitude. And talent.
Good point. Like I said, I’ve never listened to her music, just read the hype and the criticism.
Kenny Chesney isn’t my jam but I tagged along to one of his arena shows 2 years ago. My goodness that man can put on a show.
Kenny isn’t my jam either, but I gotta admit I think his tractor’s sexy. 😉
As for Iggy, I don’t think she should be bodyshamed, but neither do I think she should be such a big deal.
Also, the One True Iggy will always be Iggy Pop!
Iggy Azalea isn’t even in the same stratosphere as Kenny Chesney. She’s a new artist who decided to go right out the gates with an arena tour with an average ticket price of $167. This always had disaster written all over it.
Agreed. Iggy Azalea does not appear ready for the arena level. I am always amazed at how much work appears to go into a well run stage show.
@Sarah I agree. I went to a show on her last tour (my friend won tickets from a radio station) and she was only onstage for like 45-50 minutes. I was surprised she didn’t try to add time by talking about her musical influences and doing some covers, but no. She didn’t even do an encore either! So I think she should have waited until she has another album and enough material for at least a 90-minute show.
She killed her career. Instead of keeping quiet and hitting the studio, she started Twitter wars and mouthing off. She then got mad and stopped communicating to her fans, the ones she needed to buy her concert tickets. Azalea needs to rethink her PR strategy and concentrate on her music.
+1
It’s not only the tude but that she bit off too much at once. She isn’t ready for an arena tour in any way.
So combine that with the attitude, and you have a bad combination. I had friends who say her perform at their college last year, and man did she NOT want to be there. It made her performance incredibly lackluster. She needs to work on that. I’m not a fan, but even I can see and advise that staying power in the industry is not pissing off the potential fan base. If you want to do rap, don’t make it into a joke.
Question: if Iggy wants to be a popstar (and let’s be real, that’s her biggest goal) why rap? She’s terrible at it. And rap music is one of the only genres in music where the lyrics are expected to be written by the artist. Say what you will about rappers, Jay Z writes his own songs. Drake writes his own songs. Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne write their own songs. It’s part of raps DNA. Why does little Miss no flow having, ghost writer using want to be a rapper?
Because she can’t sing. She said it herself.
She can’t rap either. She has no flow. She can’t write. She can’t freestyle.
@farah
No, she didn’t say she can’t sing, period. She said that she can’t sing and that’s why she started to rap. As if anyone can rap because it’s just fast talking with an accent.
Lil Wayne definitely uses ghost writers. There’s speculation he feuded with his main ghost writer who was on the early Carter albums, and that’s why his material since has not been very good. But you are right about the freestyle qualities – Iggy has none!
Meh I don’t really think that’s a selling point that those artists write their own songs except for eminem and maybe a few songs by drake and jay-z (definitely not recent ones).
Rap is different from other genres. It’s all about being real. Writing is a part of that. Iggy doesn’t write. All of her ghostwriters outed her.
Krissychula pretty much sums it up perfectly here…
http://youtu.be/fgz0qYHrtzA
I really wish people would stop using mental disorders to describe their everyday personality traits. It grates my nerves. Someone being diligent about keeping their house clean does not automatically mean they are OCD. There are people who deal with real debilitating OCD and saying things like that minimize the condition.
Iggy, wanting “creative direction” for your tour (that gets its own side eye) does not make you a psychopath. That is a stupid statement in and of itself. Someone who has absolutely no emotion or regret for heinous acts is a psychopath. Someone who manipulates the world around them to get what they want with no regard for others is a psychopath (maybe a sociopath). But wanting “creative direction”? Not a psychopath.
Yeah, people can be really ignorant. As useless as my psych degree will be on its own, I learned a lot of interesting and useful stuff!
You’re right! My mother was bipolar and it tore her apart until she got cancer and refused to treat it because she thought it was god sending her mercy by giving her an escape from the horrors in her mind. People who laugh when they change their mind and say “omg, I’m so bipolar.” Like it’s a joke irk me. It’s really not a joke, its ignorance.
Glad I’m not the only one who sees and HATES this abominable misuse of psychiatric disorders. One common one is seeing dissociative identity disorder confused heavily for schizophrenia in shows and movies, with the result being that the character looks like they have both. Is that even possible to have both and have them interact that way (see: Colin Hanks in Dexter)? I don’t know.
Iggy’s misuse of “psychopath” is one I haven’t seen and hope never to see again. What a silly girl.
They cancelled the tour because they know her only fan base is under the age of 4, and that new face of hers scares small children. (And me.)
She might be self conscious and depressed about her surgery. She looks so unhappy in her new face pictures. Must be a downer to look in the mirror and see Hello Kitty looking back at you.
Not a fan, but I hope she is OK.
I hope she’s over, and that she never comes back.
if talk singing is rapping, rex harrison was a rapper
Brilliant comment!
Crap, I think you just ruined My Fair Lady for me. All I can see now is Rex Harrison rapping I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face.
The main reason she cancelled the tour is low ticket sales. Who’s bright idea was it to book large 20,000 cap. arenas? New artists play theaters and small facilities like 5000 cap. If Iggy did this from the beginning she wouldn’t be looking like a fool now. Doing duets isn’t that big of a problem. A lot of rappers do them. But there’s a lot of singing on Iggy’s duets. Having a tape play would be distracting. Comparisons to Ariana Granda doesn’t make sense considering she could sing the duets. It wouldn’t take away from the performance.
Iggy is one of the most un-savvy artists out there. Between the disaster of her public image, the fact that somehow the rapping on her own songs became filler next to the guest hooks, and Iggy buying into her own hype, this woman isn’t exactly primed for longevity. Whoever booked an arena tour for her clearly hadn’t listened to her music.
Reasons her career is crumbling around her:
Since her beginning fans of rap music complained that she seemed to be getting the easy path with major publications declaring her the Queen of Rap and individuals seeming so damned relieved to finally have a white female rapper to coo over. Even Billboard gave her an award she wasn’t even qualified for according to their rules. I know everyone says that was piling on her but then what’s the point? They’re not bending the rules for the amazing black artists are they?
She wasn’t that talented, didn’t work her way up, didn’t do many features, didn’t have a strong fan base. It was just boom – here she is and everyone’s declaring her the best thing to happen to rap.
Like others have said she had this nasty attitude about appropriation, she never wanted to engage in conversation about her role on the industry, she didn’t have a verse that was all her that charted, as soon as criticism came she shrugged off her fake rap persona and would speak in that eloquent ‘woe-is-me’ Amethyst voice, she couldn’t rap, she couldn’t freestyle, she displayed a stunning amount of refusal to even engage in matters involving the community she was so quick to rip off, she’s got a bad attitude and she cries victim every time she’s challenged.
Thanks to social media she couldn’t just be shoved down our throats while we gagged and she became some icon she never was.
This post is EVERYTHING.
The truth!!!
Yes, yes & yes!!
Everyone realized her music sucked and was a crappy, racist (yet all too happy to trade in on black culture) homophobe?
She stinks. Period
I am not surprised. She really has a bad attitude and it shows. There are some celebrities that I am sure are jerks in real life, but have enough sense to hide it pretty well from the public, for the most part.
She also needs to stop acting like she is authentic. She claimed she came to the U.S. because she didn’t feel like rap was big in Australia and she wouldn’t take off, but she started out modelling, then went to pop music, then finally rap. She was bought and packaged, but they obviously didn’t do enough work on her public image.
It doesn’t matter if she is “accepted by the rap community”. She’s a pop star. She doesn’t need to have the dual Pop/rap appreciation that Minaj gets in order to make a decent amount of money.
If she wants to be respected, that’s another thing.
Well, the answer is in the title. Also, who the hell does an arena tour without a full proper album.
I hope the fans get a full refund on tickets if sold already. This is the second time that the tour has been cancelled. Shes a flat tire, I doubt a third attempt would be any kind off a success. I think Iggy Pop would like his name back and it’s time for the fans to move on for better suited entertainers.
Poor ticket sales is the only reason. She should have started with an “intimate” tour. Her management needs a reshuffle.
Her career is over, and that has a lot to do with her new face. At least she was a good looking woman before, and she had a certain swagger, but now? She looks like a wax figure. I feel very sorry for her. I hope she’s OK.
I find it silly that people would expect her to apologize or explain herself with regard to the type of music that she chooses to record. No one asked Darius Rucker to do that when he parlayed into country.
I don’t care for Iggy’s type of music or her in general, but just because folks are offended does not mean an apology is required.
A white person approaching black culture with such ignorance and nonchalance has nothing to do with Darius Rucker singing country music. One is appropriation one is not. Not to mention Rucker sings county because he seems to like it, he’s good at it and he respects the genre. Iggy, and yourself it seems, can’t be bothered to care about the history of hip/hop and the history of appropriation of black music by white people in general.
What the eff did she do to her face? Does she have no real friends? Someone, ANYONE who could have talked her out of whatever the hell she had done?
I’d bet my next paycheck that the final nail in the coffin of Itchy Areola’s career was that ill-advised most recent round of plastic surgeries.
She couldn’t rap for shit earlier, was a whiny asshole and fake as hell, with nothing but a nicely remodelled face and butt to appeal to the masses. Now, unless she intends to spend the whole of her shows with her back to the audience, she isn’t even eye candy.
I love when bad plastic surgeries happen to total bitches.