Ice Spice Says She Doesn’t Take Colorism Claims About Her Fame Personally
Drill rapper Ice Spice perceives colorism as just another divisive tool used to undermine her burgeoning career and pit music artists against one another.
The Bronx-born emcee—a fair-skinned, curly red-head 23-year-old who only just began making music in 2021—recently addressed the mounting criticisms that her career wouldn’t be near as fruitful had it not been for her skin tone in a feature interview for Teen Vogue’s June cover. The emcee made it clear that she doesn’t take the comments personally.
“I have seen those opinions. I feel like that’s not something personal to me. I feel like that’s been the conversation for generations and forever, since the beginning of time,” she told the publication.
The rapper, who has already collaborated with the likes of Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift, dismisses such remarks, recognizing that they often come at the expense of her industry peers. “I try not to feed into negativity because I also see that when people are trying to make that point, it’s not out of a good place,” she explained, adding, “[They end up putting] somebody else down.”
Last May, rising Alabama rapper Flo Milli voiced similar sentiments in a series of Twitter posts when she addressed fans who routinely use her as a benchmark of lesser success in comparison to lighter-skinned artists, often linking it to her skin color.
The “Beef FloMix” emcee who recently shared the stage with Ice Spice at Hot 97’s Summer Jam, wrote, “I wish yall would stop with this tired ass narrative yall love to push about my career” before adding elsewhere, “and stop mentioning me while trying to degrade another artist it's WEIRDDD.”
