Iggy Azalea

Iggy Azalea Bio

Amethyst Amelia Kelly, known professionally as Iggy Azalea, is an Australian former rapper and songwriter born on 7 June 1990 in Sydney, New South Wales. She moved to the United States at age 16 to pursue a career in hip hop and gained public attention through YouTube music videos and her 2011 mixtape Ignorant Art. Azalea signed with American rapper T.I.’s Grand Hustle label and achieved mainstream success with her 2014 debut studio album The New Classic, which featured the chart-topping single “Fancy” with Charli XCX and the hit “Work.” Throughout her career, she built a reputation as one of the best-selling female rappers in the world and earned multiple American Music Awards, Billboard Music Awards, and Grammy nominations. In 2024, Azalea announced her retirement from music to focus on other creative ventures.

Early Life and Background

Amethyst Amelia Kelly was born in Sydney and raised in Mullumbimby, New South Wales. Her father, Brendan Kelly, worked as a painter and comic artist, while her mother, Tanya, cleaned holiday houses and hotels. Azalea grew up in a home her father built by hand from mud-bricks on roughly five hectares of land, alongside two siblings named Mathias and Emerald Kelly. Her father introduced her to art as a teenager, and that influence remained with her throughout her life. She has claimed partial Aboriginal ancestry, noting her family arrived in Australia on the First Fleet.

Azalea began rapping at age 14 and initially formed a group with two neighborhood friends, modeling the act after the group TLC. She disbanded the group when the other members failed to take the project seriously, explaining that she was simply too competitive. She has described feeling like an outsider in Australia and drawn to the United States because of hip hop’s origins there. Azalea has credited Tupac Shakur’s “Baby Don’t Cry (Keep Ya Head Up II)” as the song that sparked her love of music at age 11 and inspired her to write her own songs.

In pursuit of her dream, Azalea dropped out of high school and worked cleaning hotel rooms alongside her mother to save money for the trip. She has said she disliked school apart from art class and was teased for wearing homemade outfits. In 2006, shortly before turning 16, she told her parents she was going on a holiday with a friend and instead relocated to the United States. After arriving, she earned a General Educational Development (GED) and lived in the country on a visa waiver for several years before receiving a five-year O visa in February 2013.

Path to Music

After settling in the United States, Azalea lived in Miami, Houston, and Atlanta, working with members of the Atlanta hip hop scene and collaborators like FKi and Natalie Sims. During this period, she adopted her stage name, combining the name of her childhood dog Iggy with Azalea Street, the street where her family lived. She began producing stop-motion animated videos set to freestyle rap and built a small online following despite frequent criticism. She eventually moved to Los Angeles in 2010 and signed a brief management deal with Interscope Records.

Azalea released her debut mixtape Ignorant Art on 27 September 2011, with the explicit intent of making listeners question old ideals. The project included guest appearances from YG, Joe Moses, Chevy Jones, and Problem. She followed the mixtape with the music video for “My World,” featuring actor Tiny Lister, which earned her wider attention online. In early 2012, she appeared on the cover of XXL as part of its annual “Top 10 Freshman List,” becoming the first female and first non-American rapper featured on the list.

On 1 March 2012, T.I. announced he had signed Azalea to his Grand Hustle Records label. She released her EP Glory in July 2012, followed by her second mixtape TrapGold in October of that year. Azalea made her United States national television debut in October 2012, joining T.I. and other Grand Hustle artists in a cypher at the BET Hip Hop Awards. That same month, she served as an opening act on Rita Ora’s Ora Tour, establishing herself as a rising presence in the American hip hop scene.

Iggy Azalea Career

Early Career (2011–2012)

Azalea’s first notable work was the mixtape Ignorant Art, released in 2011 and followed by her EP Glory in July 2012. Her early singles “Pussy” and “Two Times,” released with music videos on YouTube, helped her earn public recognition in the United States before she signed a major record deal. Azalea also became one of the most discussed acts on XXL’s 2012 “Top 10 Freshman List,” a placement that raised her profile among hip hop audiences. Her second mixtape, TrapGold, was produced entirely by Diplo and FKi and received a European headline tour.

Azalea worked with several record labels before settling on a deal, eventually signing with Mercury Records in February 2013. By the end of 2012, she had performed at the BET Hip Hop Awards, opened for Rita Ora on tour, and appeared on VH1 Divas alongside Natasha Bedingfield and Bootsy Collins. These early milestones established her as an emerging international artist with both critical attention and a growing fanbase.

Breakthrough (2013–2014)

In 2013, Azalea released her commercial debut single “Work” while serving as the opening act for Rita Ora’s Radioactive Tour in the United Kingdom. The single premiered on BBC Radio 1Xtra in February 2013 and was followed by additional singles “Bounce” and “Change Your Life,” the latter featuring T.I. She also opened for Beyoncé on the Australia leg of The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour in late 2013, further raising her international visibility. In February 2014, she released “Fancy” featuring Charli XCX, inspired by the 1995 film Clueless.

“Fancy” became Azalea’s most successful single, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Hot Rap Songs, and Dance Club Play charts. Her debut studio album The New Classic was released on 21 April 2014, debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 52,000 copies in the United States. The album also topped the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, making Azalea the first non-American female rapper to reach the top of that chart. That same year, she was featured on Ariana Grande’s “Problem,” which peaked at number two on the Hot 100 behind “Fancy.”

With “Fancy” at number one and “Problem” at number two, Azalea became only the second musical act, after The Beatles, to rank simultaneously at the top two spots of the Hot 100 with their first two respective entries on the chart. She also achieved three simultaneous top ten hits on the Hot 100 with “Fancy,” “Problem,” and “Black Widow” featuring Rita Ora. The reissue Reclassified followed in November 2014, and Azalea made her Saturday Night Live debut that October, performing alongside Rita Ora and MØ. At the 2014 American Music Awards, she took home two wins in the Rap/Hip-Hop categories, and she received four nominations at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist.

Notable Works and Milestones

Azalea’s signature work is the single “Fancy” from The New Classic, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 and earned a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. The New Classic itself won her widespread recognition, including two American Music Awards and a Billboard Music Award for Top Rap Song for “Fancy.” Her acting debut came in 2015 with Furious 7, where she played a race driver and contributed to the film’s soundtrack alongside Wiz Khalifa. Azalea also became the first female rapper to serve as a judge on The X Factor Australia during the show’s eighth season in 2016.

Iggy Azalea Award Nominations

Throughout her career, Iggy Azalea has received numerous nominations across major music awards ceremonies. In 2014, she received four nominations at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for “Fancy,” and Best Rap Album for The New Classic. She also earned four additional American Music Award nominations that year and seven nominations at the MTV Video Music Awards, making her the most nominated artist at that edition of the VMAs. In 2015, Azalea led the iHeartRadio Music Awards nominations with five and received twelve nominations at the Billboard Music Awards.

Iggy Azalea Awards Won

Iggy Azalea has accumulated a substantial collection of awards throughout her career. Her accolades include two American Music Awards, three Billboard Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award, one People’s Choice Award, and four Teen Choice Awards, along with one ARIA Award for Breakthrough Artist in 2014. She was also honored as GQ Australia’s Woman of the Year in 2016 and ranked at number 50 in Rolling Stone Australia’s “50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time” issue in 2020. The table below summarizes her verified award wins.

Iggy Azalea Family

Iggy Azalea was born to father Brendan Kelly, a painter and comic artist, and mother Tanya, who cleaned holiday houses and hotels. She has two siblings, Mathias Kelly and Emerald Kelly. Azalea has a son born in 2020 with American rapper Playboi Carti, whom she has said she is raising as a single parent after their relationship ended.

Personal Life

Azalea was in a relationship with American rapper ASAP Rocky from late 2011 to 2012. She later began dating Los Angeles Lakers player Nick Young in November 2013, and the couple became engaged in June 2015 before splitting in June 2016. In late 2018, she began a relationship with rapper Playboi Carti, with whom she welcomed a son in June 2020. By October 2020, Azalea publicly stated she was raising her son alone and was not in a relationship with Carti, later alleging he had missed the birth and refused to sign the birth certificate.