Iggy Azalea shines on the cover of Elle Canada

The big reveal, Australian sweetheart Iggy Azalea is on the April cover of Elle Canada.

It's Iggy Azalea as you've never heard her before: vulnerable, humble and ready to start again.

Iggy Azalea may be one of the most polarizing figures in the music industry today. Since releasing her first album, The New Classic, in 2014, the 25-year-old Australian has proudly defended her right to be a white female rapper. In doing so, she has amassed a legion of devoted fans who have been interacting on social media with the musician almost daily since her early days producing mixtapes. Shortly after releasing The New Classic, her singles “Fancy” and “Problem” held the number one and number two spots simultaneously on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. (FYI, no artist has been able to achieve this feat since the Beatles.) She has also received industry praise over the past two years in the form of four Grammy nominations, two American Music Awards and three Billboard Music Awards. 

As all of this was happening, however, an emotionally charged debate about race, gender and the socio-political state of the hip-hop scene was also heating up. By mid-2015, the conversation engulfed Azalea when her public feud with rapper Azealia Banks went viral. In the wake of protests in Ferguson, Mo., New York and Baltimore, Md., Banks called her out for not commenting, tweeting her “Black Culture is cool, but black issues sure aren’t, huh?” The widely respected rapper Q-Tip jumped in shortly after with a series of tweets aimed at Azalea, informing her about the history of hip hop, while the hacker group Anonymous threatened to leak nudes of the musician if she didn’t apologize for misappropriating black culture. 

News credit: Elle Canada