Azealia Banks is only about a year and a half removed from posting the YouTube video that brought her to acclaim, but now she’s a major-label rapper with a debut album on the way soon — and she’s using it to her advantage. That much was clear when she first released “No Problems” in January in the midst of a dispiriting beef with fellow New York City up-and-comer Angel Haze: Her rival could rap with righteous fire, but Banks had the extra armament of electronically booming “witch-hop” production. Haze was fighting guerilla warfare; Banks had a tank.
That track might’ve presaged Banks’ recent single, “Yung Rapunxel,” where she relies less on verbally impressive rapping and instead overpowers with screaming and aggro electronics — less Prodigy the rapper, more Prodigy the “electronica” firestarters. Her crossover to the realm of EDM dancer/vocalists continues with the “No Problems” video, directed by Rony Alwin and shot when Banks was in Miami for the Ultra Music Festival. Banks bounces around and raps into her phone amid revelers who include fellow multi-scene straddlers Steve Aoki and Diplo in a clip that’s not shy about scantily clad bodies. It will probably appeal to a different audience than her Fantasea mixtape or the “212” video, but it’s potentially a bigger one.
