Iggy Azalea Admits Her Infamous Sway Freestyle Was 'Trash'
Iggy Azalea has admitted that her notorious 2015 freestyle on Sway In The Morning was “trash” in hindsight.
The freestyle, which found Azalea spitting memorable bars such as: “Better check my tax bracket/ What you think was gonna happen/ Naggin’ now he’s leaving and y’all broke up like Mad Men,” was met with critical disdain from the jump, with one memorable caller known as “John From Tennessee” allegedly calling in to Sway’s radio show to call Azalea out for her tepid bars.
“That shit is fucking trash dog, get the fuck off the airwaves!” John said at the time. Obviously, Azalea’s career carried on, and the lyrics even ended up on her song “New Bitch” off her debut The New Classic, but the Twitter account Hip Hop Moments took a minute to remind people of John’s disrespect.
“Never forget when John from Tennessee violated Iggy Azalea’s freestyle,” the account wrote on Twitter. The New Classic rapper responded, and confirmed that her first appearance on Sway wasn’t her finest moment.
“Never forget that this is a literal EDIT & whilst this verse is indeed trash, John from Tennessee has never called me,” Azalea wrote, adding: “The call was to lil Debbie if anyones curious about who John called or where this originated.”
The call was to lil Debbie if anyones curious about who John called or where this originated. ?♀️
— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) September 21, 2022
Lil Debbie confirmed Azalea’s account, writing: “Yea he called in for me but you’re right he could’ve called in for that verse you spit.” A fan then commented on how the Azalea cut of the video often reappears online.
“Same because it’s always to shit on me but it doesn’t upset me because it never actually happened so why would I care? Lmaoooooo,” Azalea replied.
Yea he called in for me but you’re right he could’ve called in for that verse you spit. ??♀️
— Lil Debbie (@L1LDebbie) September 21, 2022
Same because it’s always to shit on me but it doesn’t upset me because it never actually happened so why would I care?
Lmaoooooo ??♀️? https://t.co/wnBsyyZe0P— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) September 21, 2022
Iggy Azalea’s debut studio album The New Classic dropped on April 21, 2014, and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, moving 52,000 album-equivalent units. The highest charting album of that year since Nicki Minaj‘s Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, The New Classic ended up going platinum and was the second most streamed album of 2014.
Rumors had circulated at the time that Azalea and Nicki were on bad terms, and those rumors were rehashed by a New York Post article that aimed to detail all of Nicki Minaj’s rap beefs over the years. Both parties came out and criticized the article, saying there was no validity to it.
“Why am I on this?” Azalea asked on Twitter. “We’ve never said anything bad about one another. Y’all weird.”
“You should write about your feuds with the ugly stick,” Minaj said in a DM sent to the article’s author Chuck Arnold. “Clearly it’s been beating the fuck out of your ugly ass.”
The Post‘s article claimed Azalea had insulted Minaj after the latter’s 2010 BET Awards performance, and that the Young Money superstar cryptically responded to her while accepting a BET Award four years later. A Nicki fan then reshared a clip of Iggy saying she liked Cardi B’s music more than Nicki’s.
“I can like whatever music i want lmaoooooooooo. A song is a song,” Azalea wrote on Twitter. “I’m not part of y’all weirdo lol wars.”
Despite going into retirement in 2021, Iggy Azalea announced in August that she is back and will start making music again. Her last album was her 2021 project The End of An Era, and she said her plethora of haters on Twitter can “cry about” her return.
“A year ago I was willing to walk away from music because I was tired of the negative energy it attracted,” she tweeted. “But what I’ve learned is that even when I’m minding my business, y’all gonna be negative AND nosey.”
She added: “So if I can’t have peace, neither can you. I’m coming back. Cry about it.”