Ice Spice, Why All the Hate?
Talent and good looks are a recipe for envy.
Update: For the video essay version of this article, click here!
Nicki Minaj, Megan the Stallion, Cardi B, and Latto all took between four and 7 years to achieve mainstream viability. Today, it isn’t uncommon for a solo artist to ascend the ladder to massive fame in under four years. In fact, the time it takes to become enormously popular is steadily decreasing, with some artists reaching global success in under 3 years.
To give you some perspective, it has been much more common for artists of every genre to regularly spend as much as ten years developing their craft before they reach mainstream success (taken into account here is the time necessary to learn one’s instrument or vocal craft, write popular music, perform and eventually garner enough fans to become a “thing” culturally speaking). In the past, the absence of the internet and social media platforms now common prevented artists from reaching larger audiences with their material.
Of course, for bands and groups, the time to reach success is typically lessened due to the collective musicianship and experience of each of the members. Black Sabbath released Sabbath Bloody Sabbath after being together for between three and four years.
Ice Spice, Coi Leray, and Latto are three of the youngest and most recent female hip hop stars to quickly achieve massive fame. In some regard, they all follow in the footsteps of their, still culturally relevant, but older contemporaries, Nicki Minaj, Megan the Stallion, and Cardi B.
Out of the above mentioned women, Ice Spice has become most fascinating due to the speed with which she has amassed her popularity. A Bronx, New York native, Spice has managed to achieve enormous success with just a handful of singles (arguably just one) in about one year (with about a year and a half of work leading up to this).
If Looks Could Kill
Her critics claim that her fame is due to her skin color (she is light-skinned with naturally curly red hair), an accusation of preferential treatment, and that she lacks true talent. Let’s address the first claim that her fast rise to the top of the hip hop world is due to her looks.
While Ice Spice likely attributes her success to her talent, it is apparent, considering our society’s preoccupation with female sexuality, that her looks have much to do with her rise.
Generally speaking, there is a common consensus that beauty is subjective. After all, no two people have the exact same beauty preferences. Yet, just as common is the realization (conscious or unwitting) that there is an elemental component of objectivity in beauty, namely that there is something which makes beautiful people, well…beautiful.
I won’t go into the various theories on what makes something or someone beautiful, however, if you are interested, a good place to start might be with the 18th century painter, William Hogarth’s work, The Analysis of Beauty. He lays out 6 main principles that he feels make for a beautiful aesthetic. For now, it is enough to admit that the most popular women in hip hop have gotten their fame due in large part to their appearance.
Otherwise, Nicki’s, Megan’s, Latto’s, Coi’s, Cardi’s and Ice Spice’s follower counts in the millions would be illogical. Why else are these women being followed if not for their beauty in some regard? Sex sells after all. And it is in a woman’s favor to be sexually appealing if she wants to be a successful female hip hop artist.
This isn’t to say that these ladies aren’t talented rappers or writers. For what it’s worth, many of them have very attractive deliveries and rhythmic rap cadences. But let’s face it. Very few people are following these women because of their bars (with the exception of maybe Megan and Cardi…they are beasts). Their look, or more politically correct, their image is what stands out most about them.
Got any “industry plants” in your garden?
In his “Loud and Quiet” article, Daniel Dylan Ray in writing about the “witch-hunt” that many female artists face as a result of industry plant accusations says, “I use the above term witch-hunt specifically, because the overwhelming majority of artists attacked and accused of being plants are young women, the idea being that they are not capable of attaining talent, fame and success on their own at such a young age with no help and therefore are immediately suspect.”
Ice Spice has received much backlash and criticism including accusations that she is an industry plant. An industry plant, for those unfamiliar with the term, is a recent cultural phenomenon. It describes an artist who is given high investment priority by a label or backer such that their rise to stardom appears to be immediate (and unjust, say advocates of the theory) to the masses. The backing and support the plant receives is in contrast to the almost non existent support that artists who grind from the bottom and gain popularity on their own receive.
The result is that an artist must demonstrate to the public that they earned their stardom with hard work, not just talent. Unless an artist can prove they were dragged for years through the mud by shady promoters, ate ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner, did shows where no one showed up, and spent years living out of their car or on the streets, they won’t be taken seriously.
In a phrase, having well developed talent doesn’t gain you recognition as a legitimate artist anymore. You have to show struggle. And in fact, it would seem that with today’s fast paced turnover of artists, having talent actually works against you. Talent makes you too privileged. I know, strange.
I’m a fan of talent and well-developed talent at that. I mean, who wants to hear an artist that makes poor music in the genre they represent?
Furthermore, to those who believe Spice is untalented, it’s important to recognize that some level of talent is required to even draw the attention of major backers, industry or private. For our purposes here, talent can take the form of charisma, as in the case of the cringe artist, 6ix 9ine. There must be some factor that stands out and says to those who would invest, “this person or group will make me a lot of money”.
The reason many more talented acts don’t get chosen is likely due to sub-optimal luck, timing, and chance, not a conscious decision to pass over them. When there is a conscious decision to pass over an artist, it does not mean the artist isn’t talented. It may mean that the label sees more value in another artist.
With the many millions of both talented and untalented artists labels see on an ongoing basis, the likelihood that any one artist receives game changing attention and backing is slim at best. So when one manages to capture the attention of a label, it’s illogical and just plain silly to deem them a pre-chosen plant. Labels and investors are obligated to put their money behind someone if they want to remain economically viable.
Critics have drawn attention to Ice Spice’s giant celebrity status noting that she has only had one single, Munch, that has done well. Typically, before an artist has a popular mainstream single, they’ve been at their craft for a long while, unless of course, they have help, goes the argument industry plant theorists apply.
However, the most glaring defense against the notion that Ice Spice is a plant is that she actually gained popularity on her own for about three years before signing to Capitol Records in September of 2023 (this is in addition to the fact that she had been practicing and writing her own material since high school). What goes largely unaddressed are the enormous and wide-reaching effects on an artist’s climb that social media has.
Today, you can post a video on your tiktok or IG account and the next day have millions of views. This is especially the case if you are attractive and sell sexuality. Ice Spice first became popular with her Buss It Challenge video for these very reasons.
Who cares about talent anyway?
For those that don’t think she is musically talented, she can actually rap, and on beat at that. While some admire the offbeat styles made popular by artists like Blue Face, traditionalists who actually like to understand the words a rapper says and those who like their rappers to keep up with the beat, are no doubt delighted that Ice Spice accomplishes both of these feats well.
The thing that gets me about the whole industry plant thing is that, if you believe in this concept (I don’t personally), on some level, everyone who becomes popular, with the exception of the most extreme gangster hip hop artists, is necessarily an industry plant.
Side note: I excuse gangster artists from the industry plant conversation because labels have often shunned them or dropped them from their contracts (Jay Z, TI, and Nipsey Hussle are three examples of artists who didn’t receive strong industry support or investment in their early careers). As a result, these artists and others like them have often been responsible for funding their own careers through drug money, direct sales of their music, or both. If there is a such thing as a plant (there is not), they are not it.
So here’s why I don’t believe in the industry plant theory. What does a plant need to grow? Sunshine, water, nutrients, the right environment, proper positioning etc., right? In the same respect, it takes at least $150,000 of capital to break a hip hop artist (some estimates are as high as $500,000).
Who has that kind of money lying around? Typically, labels and private investors. So, any artist that makes it into mainstream consciousness likely does so with huge financial help from these entities. This is the only way for them to get the massive artistic nourishment they need to grow into national and international stardom.
If Ice Spice is a plant, then they’re all plants
And, more importantly, if the artist does not have a basic appeal (artistic potency), then they won’t do numbers, especially in the long term, no matter what kind of investment they receive. This is one reason why labels continuously look for new artists to fund. All modern ultra visible high grossing female hip hop artists were given backing and investment, even if they didn’t take off as quickly as Ice Spice did. Therefore, if Ice Spice is a plant, they all are.
As an example from the male side of the coin, Little Bow Wow came to prominence under the aegis of Jermaine Dupri. In a March 2022 Q&A session on Twitter, Bow Wow said in response to several commenters who asserted that Dupri made him, “made who? Hahahaha he made kriss kross. He aint make me. I aint go thru artist development i aint have to be taught how to rap. This aint the tv show the rap game. I came ready. No disrespect but he aint teach me nothing bout this business bro. And thats real. He dont give advice.”
Notice, Bow Wow mentioned, The Rap Game. This was a show created by Jermaine Dupri that first aired in 2016. The show was a competition styled program in which contestants were pitted against each other and forced to rap to prove who was best. Latto, who is not considered an industry plant, won the first season.
This is strange because, at least Bow Wow seems to think that appearing on a game show and gaining one’s popularity that way is an indication that one didn’t grind in the streets for their spot. Interesting.
Bow Wow is saying exactly what Chance the Rapper has said. The two, and others like them, while having backing from early in their careers, insist that their creative talent overshadows the fact that they had help. I would agree. While it isn’t often, merit should be what decides one’s fate. Both Bow Wow and Chance are talented — or appealing — enough artists to have achieved their status. Their luck in being discovered or helped early doesn’t negate that fact.
If a label happens to see you, or you have connections that allow you to be seen, AND you possess talent, why should you be denigrated for that?
Luck doesn’t preclude talent
I think it is also important to note that while there is no short supply of talent in existence, everyone is not talented. Just about everyone who has made it to a mainstream level of notoriety, is talented in some regard.
You don’t reach such heights and stay there without having a definitive, easily identifiable ability. In other words, the fact that you don’t vibe with an artist doesn’t mean they have no talent.
Good fortune also plays a part. Those who become mainstream sensations are lucky in some sense. But this is just how the game goes. What’s often forgotten is that you have to be in position to be noticed in the first place. Additionally, there are many artists who comprise what I would call, the upper middle class of the music industry.
These people have been grinding for a long time, and have garnered considerable success, enough to comfortably live doing what they love, yet, they aren’t as well known as mainstream artists. One can have a strong fan base and just service them without servicing the whole world.
Stop comparing…no one knows when an artist will blow
Lastly, in regard to the timing of an artist’s success, particularly Ice Spice’s, there is no official date that can be identified as to when an artist has “made it”. Discussing an artist’s “blow” phase is a nuanced topic. By blow phase, I mean the period when it becomes clear that the artist has enough momentum to make them a highly visible star.
To determine the blow phase, we generally look at a number of measures e.g. albums or records sold (although this is an outdated metric in the modern streaming era), streaming numbers or plays, number of projects produced, collaborations, and placements on popular charts like the BillBoard 100.
Because every artist that gets popular has songs that chart better over time, we generally can’t say that one artist arrived as culturally relevant before another. Additionally, an artist may have lots of fans but not be considered mainstream even though they are doing mainstream numbers. Sometimes, it takes a while to catch on and become a household name.
Let Ice Spice live
While Ice Spice has set the world on fire with her blazing rise to the top, it is important to remember that hip hop is a young person’s sport and the life span of a popular artist is typically less than 5 years. In order to reach the status of say, a Nicki Minaj, Spice will have to remain dedicated to her craft and grow with her fans.
As they age, they will look for her to put out material which speaks to her evolution as a human. If she cannot service them as time passes, she will become a relic like just about every other hip hop artist. That said, it’s necessary to give her time and space to grow and see what happens.
Final word goes to the industry plant conspiracists. Let’s say you want to grow a beautiful garden. So you go to a nursery to pick out a few plants. You’ll likely pick out the most attractive, healthy looking plants. You’ll leave behind the ones you perceive to be subpar, right?
And you would be correct for doing so. It’s your garden after all. Maybe Ice Spice is just the attractive plant that got picked over all the others. And wouldn’t it be silly to blame the plant for that?
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