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Azealia Banks: ‘Chasing Time’, erotics, and body politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2018

Kai Arne Hansen  and
Stan Hawkins
Kai Arne Hansen
Affiliation:
Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway E-mail: k.a.hansen@imv.uio.no and e.s.hawkins@imv.uio.no
Stan Hawkins
Affiliation:
Department of Musicology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway E-mail: k.a.hansen@imv.uio.no and e.s.hawkins@imv.uio.no
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Abstract

During the 2010s a new generation of queer hip hop artists emerged, providing an opportunity to engage with a set of politics defined by art, fashion, lyrics and music. A leading proponent of this movement was Azealia Banks, the controversial rapper, artist and actress from New York. This study instigates a critical investigation of her performance strategies in the track and video, ‘Chasing Time’ (2014), offering up various perspectives that probe into queer agency. It is suggested that techniques of sonic styling necessitate a consideration of subjectivity alongside genre and style. Employing audiovisual methods of analysis, we reflect on the relationship between gendered subjectivity and modalities of queerness as a means for demonstrating how aesthetics are staged and aligned to advanced techniques of production. It is argued that the phenomenon of eroticised agency, through hyperembodied display, is central to understanding body politics. This article opens a space for problematising issues of black female subjectivity in a genre that is traditionally relegated to the male domain.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , May 2018 , pp. 157 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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