The mix of highlife fashion and lowlife shenanigans continues on Ice Spice’s debut album, Y2K!. The up-and-coming uptown artist delivers 10 songs in about 20 minutes in a burst of petite excitement that doesn’t bother with lyrics about shaking your hips, signing checks, having sex, going out, etc. Perhaps with Coco in mind, the songs get to the point without any extraneous embellishment, with a few verses, a couple of choruses, and barely a bridge in sight.
To old school and pop music fans, Ice Spice is a harbinger of hip hop’s downfall and cultural decline. Kitschy album artThe video, which shows “Y2K” scrawled overflowing trash cans, may seem like a pointed attack on her haters, but to a generation of kids hell-bent on dystopia through TikTok and fast fashion, the 24-year-old has made the vibe her own.
Ice Spice burst onto the scene less than two years ago with songs like “Munch (Feelin’ U)” and “In Ha Mood,” quickly spawning a slang term and introducing a wider audience to drill, a rugged, intense style of rap that was born in Chicago, exported to London, and then re-imported to New York, where it picked up new habits.
“Y2K!” picks up where her last album left off, with Ice Spice’s quick, off-the-ball jokes focusing on who has the thickest body, the wettest weed, and the shiniest gems. While she hasn’t grown much as a lyricist (her inexplicable fascination with scat continues), she’s found new ways to distort her voice, honing her Minazish way of speaking, exhaling in clouds of smoke and burping her words as moans and croaks.
In that sense, Spice’s lyrics are just one element in a sonic collage assembled by producer RiotUSA, who is also the architect of her sound. The beats on “Y2K!” continue to blend drill virtuosity with club music’s relentlessness; hi-hats bang on glass like a horror movie slasher, and drums bang on doors like cops. The album proves that no matter how dissonant and ominous the beats, Ice Spice can find the pockets, a reminder that rap hasn’t been an all-boys club for years.
Those hoping that “Y2K!” would deliver 2000s nostalgia akin to The Bronx’s “Brat Summer” will be disappointed: the album’s short but sweet title merely honors the day Ice Spice was born as Isis Gaston (probably an even better name than her rap name), January 1, 2000. Just as no much-publicized tech disaster happened that day, Ice Spice’s music isn’t the end of the world, but just another way of getting through it.
