Ice Spice has noted in numerous interviews that she was a popular girl in high school, long before she started releasing music. One story she told to Erykah Badu and her daughter, Puma Carey, interview It works very well as a benchmark for her first album, 2000. Ace, born Isis Gaston, attended Catholic school in Yonkers, a suburb north of the Bronx where she lives. “There were a lot of white girls, and I was the only one with curly hair for a long time,” she says, explaining that she would constantly straighten her famous curls to fit in with everyone else, even as she stood out as the queen bee; she would even pray to God at night that her hair would be straight by morning. However, thanks to her father’s firm and loving encouragement, she decided to go to school with her natural hair one day, which made her anxious. “I spent a lot of time in the bathroom just looking at myself before going back to class. I was so stressed about something that didn’t even matter.”
2000“, which takes its name from the fashion and terrifying panic that marked Ace's birthday – January 1, 2000 – builds on the youthful, feminine exercises that made her a star and, more importantly, ventures beyond. In a series of 10 cohesive songs Uses Her limited range and our diminished attention span work to her advantage, as Ice is more energetic and chatty than ever. Her Lato-spoofing single “Think You the Shit (Fart)” is actually the least compelling track on an album that thrives on chaos and raucousness, like Jersey Club’s “Did It First” with Central C. As if she were wearing her natural hair to finally win over everyone around her, Ice is 2000 It’s like an artist taking charge of her music—trying, experimenting, looking inward, taking up space. And yet, as clean and inviting as her debut album is, it also feels uneasy, like a rap princess who says she wants to rule history—like Badu’s, she says to her elders—and she’s just trying on different crowns of different sizes, still figuring out what her crowns should look like.
Much of what I've come up with here is exciting; RiotUSA makes magic with beats that expand Ice's repertoire, and acclaimed engineer Mike Dean does what he does best as a hip-hop pioneer. My voice “King of drama. The production booms and booms, though intensely, while maintaining a modicum of the joy that separated Ice from the destruction and violence of the rest of the New York drill scene. She and Travis Scott merge worlds on “Oh Shhh…,” where he places his signature spacey improvisations under the drill flow that completes them. But then Ice and Riot take their sound south on “Bubba” and “Plenty Sun,” where they combine regal trap with ridiculous drill high hats. Elsewhere, the distorted guitars on “Bitch I’m Backing” and “TTY L” evoke Rico Nasty’s rap-rock revival, with Gunna riding the former with more energy than we’re used to from Young Thug’s laid-back disciple. It’s no surprise that there are bits of Jersey Club’s summertime rap on “Did It First” and “BB Belt,” but there’s also a nod to New York. “Gimmie a Light” and its Sean Paul sample hint at the city’s culture. Caribbean, and the album's opener, “Phat Butt,” sounds like a Nicki Minaj staple.
Ice's association with Minaj has been a hallmark of her career, from their hit song “Princess Diana” to their collaboration on Barbie “The Queen said I was the princess,” Ace sings “Phat Butt,” the song she narrates. rolling stone Ice responds to claims that she can’t really rap. It’s a stronger lyrical offering than her previous singles, but it also oscillates between respecting and impersonating Minaj. Ironically, Ice sings “I got these girls copying my flow” while sounding exactly like Minaj. That makes her interpretation of Minaj’s classic line on “Bubba” — “Bad girls, I’m your leader” — more interesting than fun. Still, the new ways Ice plays with her voice and performance on 2000 She's a welcome debtor to the Queen. It's thrilling to hear her play her shifting tones of whispered growl on “Popa,” “Bitch I'm Packin'” and “BB Belt.” She brings life to an artist who can sometimes It sounds like you're bored (without fully committing to the part) to Rappers like Anicia and Carabo). After a series of performances on Saturday Night Live, For Spotify, and Rolling Loud who have been criticized for their lack of stage presence, as well as concerns about their ability as a singer, it's satisfying to hear Ice put real energy into her animation.
She’s clearly pressing her pen, too. Ice isn’t going to win a Pulitzer Prize, and that’s not what any reasonable fan is listening to. What she’s doing is embodying something primal—the desire to be attractive, say what you want, and get more for less. To that end, Ice has found newer, funnier, and more culturally relevant ways to assert her status as the neighborhood girl, like when she casually explains that she’s “light-skinned, but I’m black, he can tell by my hair” in “BB Belt,” and recounts a date involving a strip club with lots of girls, a trap house with lots of guns, and fake Percocet that causes “diarrhea” in “Plenty Sun.” Some of her established trappings might still work to her advantage (she still calls nibble It seems only fair that you own this phrase because it helped. There are some words that seem repetitive and simple (please, no more nonsense). There are some other ill-conceived words like “Tell her to drop a pin, we don’t bowl,” “I always come first, yeah, I never come last,” and “No rocks, no scissors, just get that paper,” but there are enough bright spots that it doesn’t stop the party.
In an era when rap girls are some of the biggest stars in pop, what makes Ice so endearing and controversial is how consistent she is. Beneath the labels of stardom she wields—the designer clothes, the swagger, the self-described “brand”—she’s the kind of cool girl we’ve all met, from the lunchroom to the boardroom. She’s not a made-up girl; she’s just a girl. Ice’s charm seems effortless, natural, uncomplicated. But in the modern world of rap, where the most prevalent characters and artists are often larger than life (Doja Cat, Megan Thee Stallion, Minaj), it’s unclear whether that will last. That would be enough to keep her on top. 2000 Ice Spice is doing the work to build something bigger without losing itself, and in important ways, it's paying off; it's important.
