Here at Outernet, London
“Y’all ready to have fun tonight?”
The Bronx rapper appears for a hit-strung show consumed by Y2K aesthetics at the nation’s capital, promising fortitude yet lacking real resonance beyond a curtailed set.
Across recent years, we’ve laid witness to a whirlwind of virality from the pop-rapper: numerous TikTok hits, a track for the Barbie film soundtrack, Grammy nominations, and a litany of collaborations with her contemporaries (Nicki Minaj, PinkPantheress, Travis Scott). It is upon these attentive tidal waves in which tonight’s show arrives into plain view. A rapper whose quirky, at times whimsical, trap-pop inflections were fully realised within her debut release earlier this year, Y2K!, beseeched by an aesthetic caked in the fashion and aura of 20 years prior; shown sporadically upon tonight's backdrop screens: Tamagotchis, Motorola flip phones, and old internet search engines.
Amidst this backdrop, these hits imminently arrive in a sweetened, fully-saturated flurry, ‘Munch (Feelin’ U)’ slides Spice’s lyrics through with voracious ease (“How can I link you when I got a shoot? Don't want your love, I just want the blue”), ‘Princess Diana’ continues the spotlight on this rapper’s impressive flow fuelled by a pastiche of popularised rap (a-la Missy Elliott and Tierra Whack), forever filled with hedonism, wit and seething comebacks.
Turning through countless hit-infested avenues, ‘Barbie World’ garners a brief reminiscent dance collectivised to an oft-heard riff through years gone by, transcending into the viral hit with her pop contemporary PinkPantheress, ‘Boy’s a Liar’, which is carried strongly in spite of the absence of her complimentary co-conspirator.
The remainder of this evening serves us a string of 2 minute-long tracks which quickly decease with lacklustre life, compounding into myriad prosaic pop-trap bubblegum hits. The skittery guitar lines remain the most indelible from ‘Bikini Bottom’, ‘In Ha Mood’ accentuates the stale taste of Spice’s repeated phrases (“Like damn, she in ha mood”) and the surprise cameo from U.S. rapper Lil Tjay in ‘Gangsta Boo’ fails to salvage much within the depths of this rapid-firing set.
Surpassing the half-hour mark, we’ve soon arrived at the tail-end of the rapper’s set, announced by her most tenaciously saturated hit to date, ‘Think U the Shit (Fart)’. Eclipsed by an unbridled confidence and whimsical vengeance (“Think you the shit? You not even a fart”), Spice’s curtailed set sees an impressively energetic conclusion amongst her best efforts to cobble together an exuberant evening of her hedonistic-driven hits to date.
In spite of the millions of online streams, numerous Grammy nominations, eye-catching Y2K aesthetic and litany of popular collaborations, none can attest to tonight's underwhelming and lacklustre performance from the Bronx’s latest gift to the current pop-trap sphere. As proven tonight, these accolades fail at times to positively translate into live performance spaces, where a tangible energy is necessitated by the onlooking audience; ultimately seldom harnessed tonight. Whilst many may have felt short-changed by the 40-minute set on display, Ice Spice showed glimmers of impressive flows and an innate aptitude for bubblegum hits which explode sweetly on impact, even if the pang is invariably fleeting.
6/10
Ice Spice's latest LP, Y2K!, is out now via UMG Recordings and can be found below. Photo is courtesy of Joseph Okpako whose work can be found here.