Azealia Banks would like the very site you’re reading right now to be defunded, and it’s all because of this list of the 50 best New York rappers.
“Azealia Banks is better than ASAP Rocky,” Banks wrote in an X post in the early hours of Thursday (May 28) when responding to the ranking, which does indeed include Rocky at No. 40. “Defund Complex.”
Topping the list in question, as one should expect, is Jay-Z, with the 2003 Black Album track “Allure” highlighted as the most essential deep cut from HOV’s extensive catalog. 50 Cent, DMX, Lil’ Kim, and Yasiin Bey are among the additional artists who landed a spot on the list. Banks, also from New York, did not make the cut.
This isn’t the first time Banks, whose Zenzealia project was released to streaming services last month, has made headlines for remarks aimed at fellow artists. Last September, for example, she suggested that Doja Cat was engaging in “full-on Nicki [Minaj] cosplays,” though she also previously praised Doja’s then-recent Vie album.
As for Rocky, he doesn’t appear to have responded to, or otherwise addressed, Banks’s assertion that she is “better than” him and thus should have been included on Complex’s New York rappers ranking. On Wednesday, he kicked off a world tour in support of Don’t Be Dumb, his chart-topping fourth studio album, the rollout for which was punctuated by collaborations with Tim Burton.
