Iggy Azalea Compares Herself To Elvis Presley: ‘[We’ve] All Basically Done Black Music’

Iggy Azalea is firing back at critics, who think she’s profited off of black culture or who claim she’s more pop than rap. The Australian rapper has even gone so far as to compare herself to icons Elvis Presley and Eminem.

“If you go back to the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley and Eminem — they’ve all basically done black music,” Azalea told Vanity Fair in a recent interview published on Thursday.

When asked if it was a little “weird” for a white Australian girl to be a rapper, Iggy brought up the iconic musicians to her defense.

“I felt this wasn’t that far from what we’ve seen in music history over and over again,” she said.

Iggy Azalea has been a lightning rod for controversy recently, taking shots from fellow female rapper Azealia Banks among others over profiting off of a perceived “black culture.” But she’s also found allies in the hip-hop community from the likes of Ja Rule, who supports her and her music.

Most recently, Kendrick Lamar has even come to Azalea’s defense, as reported by Billboard. Lamar told Billboard that Iggy is “doing her thing.”

The Grammy nominated rapper continued, “Let her. People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing, continue to rock it, because obviously God wants you here.”

Much of the criticism is directed at the fact that she’s a white rapper, but Azalea insists the beef she’s been involved with has more to do with her being a woman than her skin color.

“They don’t say that stuff about Macklemore,” Iggy points out. “So, yes, I think it has 100,000 percent to do with the fact that I have a vagina.”

Vanity Fair also asked her if her life has changed since the breakout success of her hit song “Fancy.” Azalea was quick to point out that it has, in both positive and negative ways.

“I can’t walk down the street anymore,” she said. “And I have to be very selective when I grocery shop. I went from having nothing to having everything I could possibly want. It’s weird. It’s almost scarily easy to quickly forget that you had nothing.”

She also recounted the days when she was so poor she only had two pairs of shoes.

“The leather would wear off and I would color them in with a marker to keep them looking black. When I first came to America I thought the Steve Madden brand was the pinnacle of high fashion, because the shoes were $200. And I thought, Who the [heck] has $200 to buy shoes?”

[Iggy Azalea photo via Color Lines]