The 23-year-old Bronx rapper is the year’s breakout star, has Nicki Minaj on speed dial and a gift for coining slang. On the path to outright superstardom, she’s dodging controversies and finding her footing with fame
Late last summer, not long after she released her viral megahit Munch (Feelin’ U), the New York rapper Ice Spice was scrolling Instagram and was taken aback to see an ad featuring a photo of her taken in her house, hawking the clothes that a stylist had brought over for her to try. “I was so mad – why am I seeing an off-guard photo of me, with a sock in the background?” she says. “That was the first time I was being annoyed about getting famous.”
But even as she recalls the embarrassingly candid shot, she doesn’t sound bothered. This insouciant persona has inspired fervent devotion in young rap fans. It’s less than a year since Ice, born Isis Gaston, released Munch – the title referring to the kind of man who is good for oral sex and not much else – and became an instant icon, with her orange afro and deep vocals. Initially known for her avowedly feminine take on the hypermasculine sub-genre drill – an early single sampled the hook of Zedd and Foxes’ yearning EDM hit Clarity; other songs flip sexist rap tropes on their head – the 23-year-old has become the New York scene’s biggest star since Pop Smoke, the Brooklyn upstart who was murdered at 20 in February 2020.
