Quick Quotes. Jean Grae Talks Current Events with Playboy.

Jean Grae #5


Jean Grae is Hip-hop’s Renaissance woman. She often infuses art, animation, sex, sarcasm, a sense of humor into her musical undertakings. She’s also very candid, making her interviews pretty entertaining reads.

When asked (sort of) about Iggy Azealea and Taylor Swift, who are both constantly in entertainment news, she had this to say,

It’s about Iggy Azalea… No, I’m kidding. I don’t even think I have an Iggy Azalea question.

I would love to answer a question about Iggy Azalea. I just want her to stop doing that crazy voice. I have no problem saying this: I feel like it’s really fucking offensive. I’m offended. Is that what I’m supposed to sound like? What are you doing? I call it “verbal blackface.”

I’m definitely not going to quote you on that. How do you feel about Taylor Swift pulling all of her music off of Spotify?

I think that’s cool. I’m with it. Go ‘head, Taylor Swift. She keeps doing things to make me like her. You absolutely deserve to be getting the rate that you think you should be getting. And you have the absolute right to be like, “No. I don’t want my music there.” There’s a lot of services that, although they have the reach that they have, they’re not beneficial. Financially, it doesn’t make sense. I’d literally have to sell my body to the night every night. And then I’d be a shell of a human, and I don’t want that. So, I think it’s great that, in an age of technology, as an artist making that decision, to be like, “No. I have millions of dollars. I know there’s going to be another service, or I can think about creating another service where artists at least get paid.” So, yeah, Taylor Swift, go ‘head — except for that “Welcome to New York” shit. Shut up.

Grab her latest album #5 on BandCamp.