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Ice Spice, Bite-Size
‘Y2K!’ is funny and playful. But when an album is the same length as an episode of Abbott Elementary, the filler is frustrating.
Her jilted 2021 debut “ Bully Freestyle ” used the TikTok challenge inspired by Texas rapper Erica Banks’s “Buss It” and an ominous drill beat by Bronx-based producer RiotUSA as springboards for a career thus far dedicated to disaffected verses stuffed with relatable one-liners that don’t swing hard enough to trip. “Popa” is New York drill by numbers — kick-drum bass, bleating synth brass, hi-hats balancing double and triple time — and full of dismissive taunts: “And he left that bitch cause I’m a cooler bitch.” The sound animates the rapper. Ice Spice may be a generational phenomenon making music that resonates with audience marked by melted attention spans, but her cadences and humor are unabashedly uptown — rooted in the same brutally direct banter you hear while someone is getting torched at a bodega or Chinese restaurant north of Central Park.
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