“Fat white Americans,” Lorde, and Kanye weren’t the only targets of Azealia Banks‘ April 2015 Playboy cover story released on Monday, Mar. 16. The Broke With Expensive Taste rapper also called out “young guys” for having pervasive, terrible odors.
The topic arose when Banks, 23, discussed a terrible abusive past relationship, which she first revealed back in 2013. “It started when I was 17. He was 43,” the artist told Playboy of her four-year romance. “There’s something very wrong with a man that age who wants to date a 17-year-old girl. I didn’t know how to shave my bush and s— like that. I had a hairy p-ssy. I didn’t know how to wear perfume. I had neon pink barrettes in my hair. And as [my hit 2014 single] ‘212’ started to pop off and my career started to happen, he became jealous. He choked me and beat me up, and of course you should not be f—ing with a man who puts his hands on you, but I was stupid and young.”
Despite that brutal experience, Banks said she still finds older men incredibly attractive. “I love older men,” she shared. “The things in an older man’s house are better—his furniture, even his knives and his pots. And they smell better. Young guys, they may skip a shower and s— like that.”
Banks, who’s bisexual, said that men, women, people in general are all scared of her. “Most women are scared of me. People have always been scared of me,” she told Playboy. “I punched my teacher in the face one time when I was in preschool. We were playing house, and the lady was like, ‘I’m a monster! I’m gonna eat your family!’ I punched her right in the eye. [laughs] It was a Head Start program, so I was three.”
One thing that does scare her inexplicably? The prospect of having a child of her own. Banks said sex was frequently “joked about” in her household growing up.
“My mother was always making inappropriate jokes. We had sex books in the house,” she revealed. “She never tried to hide it from me. When I got my period it was very much like, ‘Boys are going to want to touch your body, but you can get pregnant now, and we not playing that s—.’ My mom scared me off of getting pregnant.”
This somewhat explains why she’s not having copious amounts of sex. “I should be getting d-ck all the time,” Banks said. “I like to f—. [laughs] But I can’t just meet a guy and f— him. I’m too afraid of getting herpes or some s—. I like to feel them out, and then I start talking about my black female problems, and we get into a conversation about race, and then we disagree and don’t have another date. Whatever. I’ll just hang out with my mother. It’s okay, because p-ssy is way more sacred than penis.”
Regardless of whether or not she’s getting laid, Banks said she’s all about stripping down. “I love getting naked,” she told the mag. “It’s so funny, every time my manager arranges a photo shoot, I’m like, ‘Let’s do a nude photo!’ And everyone’s like, ‘Oh, Azealia, you’re always trying to bring your butt out.’ Posing for Playboy was a no-brainer. I was like, ‘Yes! They want to see me naked.'”
Banks also gave more insight about her viewpoints on racism, and how she’s cognizant that people are not her biggest fans. The “212” rapper said that it doesn’t mean these folks are racist.
“There’s misogyny, and then there’s something called misogynoir [a term coined by writer Moya Bailey to describe ‘the unique ways in which black women are pathologized in popular culture’],” she responded. “We have all these stereotypes in society: The gay man is a f–got and he’s over-the-top, or you’re an untrustworthy cracker, or you’re a loud black bitch. All these things exist for a reason, you know what I’m saying? Yeah, I am loud and boisterous.”
She alluded to her own background in the tangent. “And I am black, and I am a pain in your ass,” she said. “But I’m not really talking to you, and that’s what makes those people mad. You’re not invited to this conversation. This is not about you.”
