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Angel Haze Dresses Up in Jay Z’s ‘Tom Ford,’ Stays Chic

Angel Haze, "Tom Ford," Jay Z, 'Dirty Gold'

Two down, 28 to go. The second entry in Angel Haze’s #30Gold campaign building up to the January release of Dirty Gold is another ratatat display of verbal dexterity. Fresh off of breathing fire over Kanye West’s “Black Skinhead,” the New York rapper has turned her heat toward Jay Z’s minimally loping Magna Carta Holy Grail fashion plate “Tom Ford.” An enthralling tension in Haze’s career has been the push and pull between her wise, confessional origins and more recent all-id savagery — her “Echelon (It’s My Way”) video may have veered a bit too far in the latter direction —and that internal conflict’s on display again here: “‘Bitch, I’m ’bout my money’ / That’s what they want to hear,” she spits, not long after letting loose a George of the Jungle roar.

One of the most welcoming moments, though, comes when she sets aside the virtuosity and starts laughing at the end of the track. Chanel, Tom Ford, a million syllables a minute — whatever style Haze wears, it’s her underlying, difficult-to-exploit charisma that has made her worth coming back to again and again. Which, get used to it, she’s due to drop another one of these in a few hours.