The Girl From Mullumbimby

Amazing presence!:

Having relocated to Miami at age 16, she adopted the argot and flow of an African-American from the Dirty South; hip-hop academic and critic Oliver Wang calls it “a hat trick of appropriation: not American, not black, not southern.”

...As a pop-radio dominator, “Fancy” has two big things going for it: tight production and a great supporting performer. Rhythmically the song is electro-hop, powered not by a traditional rap breakbeat but by a rubbery synth bounce. That sound is indebted to early-’80s electro-rap pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, Nu Shooz’s 1986 pop&B classic “I Can’t Wait,” and late-’80s female-rap trio JJ Fad. “Fancy’s” London-based production team The Invisible Men, working with co-producer Kurtis “The Arcade” McKenzie, have reduced the song’s sonic footprint to little more than that digital pulse and a recurring skitter-step beat, which owes more than a little to the 2004 smash “Tipsy” by J-Kwon.

But of all the talents swirling around “Fancy,” the song’s true MVP is its featured performer, Charlotte Aitchison, aka Charli XCX, possessor of the Gwen Stefani–like voice that coos the song’s sticky hook. If her voice sounds familiar, it’s probably because you spent last summer strutting to it, too: The pavement-crusher “I Love It,” credited to Swedish duo Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX (a 2012 single that took a full year to emerge), was largely Aitchison’s confection.

...But forget the ’80s and the ’00s: Iggy is, to borrow a term from Charli’s other big hit, “a ’90s bitch.” That’s confirmed by the song’s YouTube-dominating music video, an homage to Clueless, the 1995 Alicia Silverstone comedy. Billboard reports that the video was a linchpin in the song’s climb to No. 1, having been viewed some 60 million times since its March debut.

...Ultimately, the success of “Fancy” is owed largely to timing, which is the dark art of major-label pop promotion. Knowing when a style—in this case, ’80s/’90s–referencing electro-rap—is ascendant is a skill in itself, and after years of Azalea scoring more headlines than hits, her team managed to make her seem new again.