Azealia Banks sticks to music in Coachella triumph

Azealia Banks sticks to music in Coachella triumph

Azealia Banks, the hip-hop singer who rarely shies from controversy, kept to the music and won a triumphant reception with a genre-crossing set at the Coachella festival. The 23-year-old New Yorker emerged as a crowd favorite on the first day of the influential music festival in the California desert, where prominent performers Friday included sexagenarian hard rockers AC/DC and the sleek post-punk band Interpol. Banks has been persistently in the news after spearheading charges that Australian rapper Iggy Azalea was exploiting African American culture and, more recently, telling Playboy magazine that she hates "fat white Americans." But at Coachella, Banks steered clear of provocation and showed why she is one of the most dynamic, versatile and challenging artists to emerge recently on the pop radar. Banks seamlessly switched from rapping to singing to, on the enraged breakup song "Yung Rapunxel," shouting into a megaphone.