Ice Spice: proof that hype is no match for musical depth

Ice Spice at Here at Outernet
Ice Spice at Here at Outernet - Joseph Okpako

There couldn’t be a more fitting venue for Ice Spice to shake her thing in the capital than at Here at Outernet, a shiny development on the corner of Tottenham Court Road (just yards from the former site of the Astoria) designed as a shrine to Instagram-worthy “content”. Over the past few years, the US rapper has become one of pop’s most in-demand names thanks to her zippy singles whose first priority is going viral; creative depth doesn’t seem to come into the equation.

Last night, for the bargain price of £60, fans were treated to a set that lasted a grand total of 45 minutes. To be fair, the 24-year-old New Yorker has only one actual album, Y2K!, to her name (with its run-time coming in at 23 minutes), yet you still couldn’t help but feel short-changed. It stood in stark contrast to my experience at The Cure’s dazzling, three hour-long gig at the Troxy on Friday night that felt like a gift from the band to their fans: ticket price, the same.

Watching Ice Spice (real name Isis Naija Gaston) breathlessly race through her expletive-filled, bubblegum-hued hits, it became difficult to tell whether the sounds coming out of her microphone were live or pre-recorded; judging by the high-energy dance moves, that would’ve left the more athletically challenged among us quaking and out of breath, probably the latter.

Gaston has cleverly capitalised on the TikTok generation’s insatiable appetite for music that comes ready armed with corresponding dance routines and quippy choruses. Her aesthetic, too, has played a major role in her ascent to pop’s top leagues: her tightly-cropped red hairstyle, a la little orphan Annie, mixed with edgy outfits inspired by Noughties nostalgia (imagine the denim, rhinestone and mini skirt getups favoured by Paris Hilton). She has friends in high places, having collaborated with Taylor Swift on the billionaire’s Karma remix, while Drake and Beyoncé are also fans.

In London, then, the crowd was dreaming of starry special guests, particularly Central Cee, the Shepherds Bush-raised grime megastar who is massive on both sides of the pond and is, incidentally, rumoured to be Gaston’s new beau. When he didn’t appear, they had to make do with American rapper Lil Tjay for a brief rendition of their single Gangsta Boo. The sea of lit-up iPhones recording every moment received further ammunition from the opening beats of Gaston’s biggest hits: Barbie World, her infectious contribution (with Nicki Minaj) to the soundtrack of Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster; abrasive anthem Munch (Feelin’ U), now the namesake of her legions of fans, the Munchkins; and her finest work, the PinkPantheress duet Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2.

That song’s effortlessly catchy chorus plays to Ice Spice’s main strength, which is that she’s fun. She possesses the sort of natural charisma that makes her rapid rise easier to understand, though it would be good, if, on her next album, she digs deeper into her personal psyche to deliver some songs with real staying-power, thus securing her position alongside female rap titans like Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. Until then, one can’t help but wonder if she’s just another product of the internet hype machine, destined to fade away.

Ice Spice plays the O2 Institute in Birmingham tonight; icespicemusic.com