July 7 at Roskilde Festival, Cosmopol
Azealia Banks is rising female rapper from New York – the same description that befits Angel Haze, who gave her own Roskilde concert just 14 hours earlier on the same stage. The competition is pretty fierce between the two ladies from the Big Apple, who have both released diss tracks aimed at another. So maybe that's why when Angel Haze was 45 minutes late for her concert on Saturday night, it left Azealia Banks no choice but to be 47 minutes late for hers.
During the last five minutes of the waiting, her warm-up DJ, DJ Cosmo, broke the silence and may have saved Azealia some of the embarrassment when he played some music for the hot, steamy crowd – it must have been 40 degrees Celsius in the tent.
When the 22-year-old finally showed up, it was worth the wait. Wearing a body suit with large holes that made her look like a sleazy Power Ranger, she went straight for a party and got one.
Her music is a combination of rap and dance music, which is a perfect mix if you like the hip-hop and club worlds. In 2011 she released the mix tape Fantasea and is supposed to release her long-awaited and oft-delayed debut album, Broke with Expensive Taste, later this year. 'Fierce', 'No Problem', and '1991' were all on a tracklist that got the happy crowd to jump and sing.
Azealia Banks has never been to Denmark before and genuinely looked like she enjoyed the concert. She was polite and introduced DJ Cosmo and had two fiery dancers – a masculine woman and a feminine man – who rocked the stage.
The stage show was staggering and Azealia Banks gave her all. After 'Jumanji', she said: "I know I'll get in a lot of trouble for this, but you know me – I don't give a fuck", after which 'Harlem Shake' Azealia-style blasted out. The Harlem-grown performer provided her own lyrics to the well-known track and played it longer than the man behind the original, Baauer, did on the festival's opening night.
It seemed that nothing could top this move, but the concert was carried on in same style and after 'Esta Noche', when '212' came on, everything else was forgotten and largely forgiven.
Finishing off after 45 minutes with the lead single of her coming album 'Yung Rapunxel' – which is also her nickname – Azealia Banks left a too short and way too late concert.
