The title of Ice Spice’s 2023 mixtape Like…? captures her ability to say nothing sharply, the bedrock of her appeal. The single-word title implies a longer statement, while ellipses put the burden on the listener to imagine what Ice Spice might have to say but is too ambivalent to articulate. This brevity animates a cool yet unburdened persona, which supports lyrics that don’t compare to the specificity of Nicki Minaj or the shock value of Cardi B.
Ice Spice is an apt rap/pop star for the social media era because her persona acts as a marketing device for viral soundbites that, without her indifference, would appear desperate. Spice told Rolling Stone she wrote “Phat Butt”, from her debut album Y2K!, as justification of her talent: “‘OK, guys, I can rap, relax.’” However, she benefits from never needing to prove this; TikTok requires only a single lyric or hook to create a moment of fame.
Ice Spice rose to prominence in an ecosystem of long-winded peers. The deluxe edition of Taylor Swift’s 2024 release, Tortured Poets Department, includes 31 songs, and Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2 has 25. Ice Spice and other stars have tried to buck this trend. While Barbie ruled the summer of 2023, Charli XCX dubbed the summer of 2024 “brat summer”, a reference to her mode of concise pop that maintains a sense of spectacle.
The songs of Ice Spice and Charlie XCX rarely exceed three minutes. For this pair, a quick pace conveys confidence: they say what they have to say quickly, loath to explain themselves more than necessary. This selectiveness creates an alluring aura of loftiness.
At 23 minutes, Y2K! doubles down on this trend to its detriment. While an absurdly short album length plays on Ice Spice’s reputation as inarticulate and spoofs the way TikTok incentivizes creators to write short songs, the album teeters on the edge of falling victim to this trend rather than remaining aloof enough to parody it.
However, Ice Spice makes her newfound fame sound intriguing on Like…? and Y2K!. “In the hood, I’m like Princess Diana,” she says on “Princess Dianna”. On the same track, Nicki Minaj says, “Nowadays I be makin’ em famous.”
During her brief time in the spotlight, Ice Spice has adeptly absorbed celebrity into her brand. On “Phat Butt”, she mentions wearing Dolce and Gabbana and Chanel, and alludes to her four Grammy nominations. Fame is self-justifying: once you are on the rollercoaster, you need to continuously prove your presence there to remain on it.
Referencing the Bronx, her hometown, on “Gimme a Light”, Ice Spice says, “Bad bitch came straight outta Fordham.” One advantage of creating a body of work with little substance is that Ice Spice incurs less risk of breaking the balance between fame and familiarity.
Ice Spice has aced another celebrity test: a public feud. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she addressed a rift with hip-hop star Latto, mentioning a feces-shaped cake Latto posted to Twitter in June 2024. This post allegedly responded to Spice’s song “Think U the Shit (Fart)”, a diss track aimed at Latto.
In a media landscape where A-list celebrities divulge increasingly fewer details to journalists, Ice Spice’s eagerness to discuss a feud reinforces the mellowness of her image. Even when talking about conflict, she appears carefree and untethered to the standards of her peers. Talking about the dispute at all, however, allows Ice Spice to settle it on her own terms. She skirts around the facade of her nonplussed reputation when its integrity is at stake.
In the 2020s, the popularity of reality TV creates an empty type of fame where Ice Spice is equipped to thrive. By writing raps that joke about their own hollowness, she calls the culture that created her on its bluff. Spice faces criticism for failing to imitate Minaj’s lyrical prowess, but do listeners even want someone who could do that? On “BB Belt”, Ice Spice asks, “If I ain’t the one, why the f*** am I here?”
While she balances precision and fluff, Ice Spice threatens to blow her cover when referring to herself as “Miss Poopie”, as she does throughout Y2K! The song “Think U the Shit (Fart)” is funny because it brazenly embraces an elementary pun. Ice Spice’s carelessness provokes the song’s subject and listener, asking, “Will people listen as I get away with such a lazy insult?”
The tension between the jab at a rival and the poor choice of words defining it belies Ice Spice’s raps. Her style invites criticism because the ability to skate by on shoddy lyricism makes her interesting. It’s like the Kardashians started rapping.
“Miss Poopie” lacks a punchline to justify its crass nature. Perhaps enabled by the echo chamber of success, the ambivalence that usually makes Ice Spice appear unbothered can make her seem bizarre.
In 2023, a friend of Ice Spice leaked text messages in which Spice complained about Nicki Minaj’s attitude during contract negotiations for their collaboration on the Barbie soundtrack. The fallout from this revelation doesn’t constitute a full-fledged beef between Minaj and Spice, as the latter still claims she is the “princess” to Minaj’s “queen”. However, considering the feud between Ice Spice and Latto revolved around a “s**t cake”, the meaningful conflicts appear to follow the rappers with something significant to say.
“How the f*** I’m still chewin’ bitches in plain shorts and grey tee?” Spice asks in “Phat Butt”. The line captures her ability to attract an audience: she doesn’t have to do much to hold people’s attention. Y2K!’s title references Spice’s birthday on the first day of the new millennium. It is the sort of personal detail lacking from her lyrics, excluding mentions of designer brands, which don’t set her apart from other mainstream pop or rap stars. Spice’s marriage of her birthday and image mirrors her carefree attitude: she was born on a day that lends itself to capturing the zeitgeist of aughts nostalgia. Sometimes, the stars just align.
“Bitch, I’m a brand,” Ice Spice says on “Think U the Shit (Fart)”. Most artists don’t risk referencing the capitalist underpinnings of their platforms because it makes them appear out of touch. But Ice Spice can do so because self-reference calls attention to the irony of her existence: She’s a brand? What does she stand for?
By capitalizing on her birthday, Ice Spice amplifies her fame with only aesthetics. An interesting birthday isn’t an artistic statement of intent but a justification of its own existence. Mentioning it, Ice Spice employs a common trick: once the spotlight is on her, her argument for keeping it there constitutes various ways of stating the fact that she already has it. There are no new reasons for her fame. Did she ever have any?
However, Ice Spice makes a valid point in a viral clip from an interview with Genius lyrics. She says, “Oh, they say I’m a one-hit wonder? What are they gonna say now, two-hit wonder?” Ice Spice has made some catchy songs. “Deli” reels the listener in with an immediate echoing of its electronic beat, which Spice commands as she says, “My name is Ice, but I always stay hot.” Ice Spice’s rapping reflects her breezy persona as she maintains control of a beat without appearing to exert herself.
Yet, staying hot in spite of a chilly nom de pen (her real name is Isis Gaston) illuminates a contradiction: Ice Spice should have melted away already. Attention spans are short in the TikTok era. Although Ice Spice takes advantage of this by making music with meme-able moments ready for extraction, on a macro level, pop culture has always been fickle about its idols. Will Ice Spice be able to parlay the trend of quick listening into a career?
Spice featured Taylor Swift’s track “Karma”, another moment that minted the rapper’s A-list status. Ice Spice’s contributions to the song stretched her already thin brand to the point of self-parody. In the music video, she floats on a cloud, ad-libbing over Swift’s verses. The animation depicting her as a cloud captures her role in the cultural climate: removed, irreverent, and lacking foundation. Spice and Swift are comedic foils: Swift is self-serious and wordy, and Ice Spice is sparse yet confident.
Pitchfork characterized the remix of “Karma” as “the moment ‘opps’ entered your mom’s vocabulary”. Even Swift, an industry powerhouse, plays the relevancy game, recruiting an up-and-coming rapper for a feature. Similarly, Ice Spice appeared in a campaign for Skims, Kim Kardashian’s shapewear line. (Swift and Kardashian are famous enemies.) The powers that be are literally fighting over the latest breakout star. If this was World War I, Ice Spice would be stuck in the “no man’s land” between opposing trenches.
While celebrity output – whether music or reality TV- contains storylines for entertainment, famous people must also live out a narrative to sell their products on a massive scale. “Everybody’s a complicated character…it’s part of the dynamics of a good story,” Swift told Rolling Stone in 2012.
Whether or not “relatability” is part of a celebrity’s brand, all celebrities embody a human story. An adage says: “As in literature, as in life.” People make sense of their lives by mentally stringing together events. The act of a celebrity sharing parts of her life with the public and withholding others mirrors the choice all people make when omitting and including details in the stories of their lives.
Narratives organize life. However, life itself needs freedom to be messy. It’s best to live according to practical decisions on a day-to-day basis and make sense of what matters when you can. Personally, writing music reviews helps me make sense of the world. (Dear reader, thank you for sticking with me this far.)
The Kardashian vs. Swift dichotomy is a signature Kris Jenner production because it falsely portrays the feud between the two parties as an even match. The Kardashians have the word “reality” embedded in their profession, so they have a plausible reason to claim their argument is always right. Gaslighting Swift helps their case. She is the villain in their narrative, and their narrative is “real”. The infamous leaked phone call between Swift and Kanye West was only as important as the parts of it Kim shared.
Spice travels between both camps, revealing a feud doesn’t halt business. Ice Spice is frank in her raps, such as on “Popa”: “Just me on this plane and the stewardess.” There goes the ozone layer!
Earlier in this review, I said Ice Spice is surrounded by people with a lot to say. I suppose that includes critics. Popular musicians function as props in listeners’ lives. The story of my own life manifests in reviews such as this because music tells me the life lessons I need to hear at a given time. I always get something different out of it.
Y2K! succeeds as a fun album. On a progression of high-octane, drill-influenced beats, Ice Spice manipulates syllables to make unique rhymes. This craftiness helps the songs flow smoothly without blending together. The soft but quick beat of “Did It First” sets it apart from the trap-influenced “Oh Shhh” and “Plenty Sun”.
Swift told Rolling Stone, “[Ice Spice] doesn’t just want to be a passenger in her career…she wants to be the driver of it,” referring to Spice’s inclination to participate in the business side of music. Established celebrities lean on newcomers and vice versa; it’s a symbiotic relationship. Ice Spice takes advantage of this partnership by positioning herself as a foil to the entrenched Swift and Kardashian camps. She rises above the feud, challenging the idea it should affect viewers’ perceptions of reality, no matter which side they’re on.
Due to social media, consumers feel a need to curate the best versions of themselves. The act of performing is enough to garner a following, regardless of the nature of the content. This resembles Ice Spice’s ability to popularize meaningless ad-libs like “Grah”. Critics who identify insubstantial material are subsumed into an echo chamber where everything they say makes the entity being analyzed more enticing because it never meant anything, to begin with.
Swift threatened to shatter the Kardashians’ fourth wall in 2016 as a target of Kanye West’s misogyny. In the Kardashian universe, all men are chess pieces. Swift was living proof this is a falsehood: a crack in the foundation of reality. So, she had to be buried.
Reality, like any commodity, must evolve. From the 2024 Super Bowl, a photo emerged of Ice Spice talking to former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce. One social media user speculated Kelce was asking Spice: “What does ‘grahh’ mean?”
This joke works on two levels: it parodies the perception that Millennials are out of touch with Gen Z slang even though this term has no definition. Ice Spice knows where to draw the line between music and marketing, so she creates a mythology that sells itself.
You get what you pay for. Ice Spice emerges unscathed from this review because she is honest about what she is selling. Working with Taylor Swift, a confessional songwriter, may have helped her. Swift’s honesty left her vulnerable to attack from the Kardashians because telling the truth is a liability when reality stars market their point of view as objective. “Wise men once read fake news, and they believed it,” Swift wrote in “The Albatross”.
Ice Spice compares herself to Princess Diana. She may not be as iconic as the late princess, but she knows how to make the fame game look effortless. Naming an album after her birth year may seem like an obvious choice, but it proves Ice Spice wasn’t born yesterday. She exists in a context where stating an obvious fact is the realest thing you can do.