Two years after crashing into pop stardom with an all-timer of a kiss-off in “Munch (Feelin’ U),” Ice Spice has lastly delivered her debut album: the younger Bronx rapper’s long-awaited alternative, we’re meant to know, to show she’s greater than only a viral hitmaker.
Eh, why hassle?
That’s the nonchalant vibe — and the not-inconsiderable attraction — of “Y2K!,” on which Ice Spice spends all of 23 minutes shrugging by means of 10 songs about intercourse, competitors and the chilly calculus of infidelity: “If he’s dishonest I’m doing him worse,” she causes. “I don’t care ’trigger he did it first.”
An immediate addition to the lengthy line of nice New York Metropolis voices, Ice Spice arrived in 2022 with a blasé perspective completely suited to TikTok’s bite-sized presentation. Since then she’s reached the highest 5 with PinkPantheress, gone to “Barbie World” with Nicki Minaj, scooped up 4 Grammy nods and made a bestie of a minimum of Taylor Swift. (She even shot a Dunkin’ Donuts business with Ben Affleck.) But she nonetheless sounds completely unimpressed on “Y2K!,” as if world superstar has turned out to be — sigh — another irritation.
“Everyone be figuring out my title,” she notes in “BB Belt.” “Simply need the cash, I don’t need the celebrity.”
What makes this method work is the way in which she performs her low, talky circulate in opposition to her producer RiotUSA’s beats, which will be icy and menacing (as in “Oh Shhh…” and “BB Belt”) or chipper and sprightly (as in “Suppose U the S— [Fart]” and “Did It First”). His vivid manufacturing is rooted in drill however pulls in traces of entice and Jersey membership; collectively he and Ice Spice know how you can flip an offhand phrase — “Fats butt, pull my pants up” is one in all them — right into a deviously catchy hook, then how you can flip that hook right into a type of low-boil mantra.
Along with Central Cee, Travis Scott and Gunna put in visitor appearances on “Y2K!,” whose title nods to Ice Spice’s beginning date of Jan. 1, 2000. They’re each high quality, although every rapper’s bleary mumbling tends to fade into the background behind Ice Spice’s crisp displeasure.
Does “Y2K!” finally really feel a bit slight for the way lengthy it’s taken to materialize? Certain. But the album’s throwaway high quality is definitely fairly refreshing in a yr lengthy on elaborately conceived pop extravaganzas comparable to Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” and Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Division.” In contrast to her pal with the lengthy path of vexing exes, Ice Spice bears no discernible burden in these sneering little ditties. She’s floating on indifference.