Ice Spice

There’s a great moment in Ice Spice’s Up Next film where you can see her hanging out a car window in the Bronx and waving to a park full of screaming fans. It shows not only how effortlessly she can work a crowd, but how well the untouchable cool of her online persona translates into real life. “When I’m outside and I hear my music playing—like, just random people walking by—I still get excited like the first time,” she told Apple Music. “Like, I expect to see it online and streaming, and seeing people enjoy it at home…but when you see people outside doing it? It’s different.” Like the song says: In the hood, she’s like Princess Diana—genuflect accordingly. Born Isis Naija Gaston in the Bronx on 1 January, 2000, Ice Spice fell in love with MCs like Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Kim as a kid and picked up her dad’s faves like JAY-Z and Wu-Tang along the way. Though initially associated with the Brooklyn drill scene, her style is both mellower and more melodic, splitting the difference between the attitude of classic hip-hop and the sparkly playfulness of viral pop (“Munch [Feelin’ U]” and “Princess Diana”, from her 2023 debut EP Like..?). She’s funny and talented and she knows it. “Munch”? “I was really trying to rhyme a word with ‘lunch’”, she said. Suuuure. “It’s for the baddies that get it, for the confident people, for the people that get money,” she added. “It’s just music to feel good to.”