Ice Spice blew up out of nowhere
and became one of the hottest female rappers from the bronx overnight,
and now the whole game is going crazy.
She’s only been making waves for a few months,
but there’s already a lot of drama going on with her career.
From rumors about dating Drake, to being an industry plant,
to having an alleged segs tape,
let’s break down what’s goin on with Ice Spice.
Ice Spice came up in the Bronx and has been rapping her whole life.
Her dad was an underground rapper back in the day,
so she learned how to write bars at an early age.
Her parents split up when she was a kid,
but they still lived on the same block
and Spice would go back and forth from their apartments.
The Bronx is a wild place to grow up,
and Spice spent a lot of time inside just to avoid the violence in the streets.
She went to school in the Bronx up until high school,
and then her parents sent her to a Catholic school in Yonkers
because they thought it would be a better environment.
In an interview with Audiomack World,
Spice laid down the rules for surviving in the Bronx.
She said “Mind your business, that’s number one.
Number two, you gotta really stay on your toes,
you always gotta look over your shoulder—
just be very aware.
Don’t always be on your phone; look behind you, look around you.
Third, don’t be too flashy,
unless you’re ready to fight or tryna get robbed.
And lastly, you gotta be tough.
You can’t be p****.
You gotta just put on your gangsta face, especially if you’re by yourself.”
Spice didn’t even plan on jumping into the rap game at first.
As a kid she wanted to be an actress,
but then she went the sports route and played volleyball in college for a year.
Spice realized that it wasn’t for her
and planned to go to beauty school instead,
but then she linked up with a producer named RIOT and everything changed.
Spice met Riot in college and he started sending her tracks to rap over,
but at first she wasn’t feeling any of them.
Then one day Riot sent over a beat that Spice knew was gonna be a hit,
and she used it for her first official track Bully.
According to Spice, she sat on the beat for about a month
just listening to it over and over,
and then she ended up going viral on TikTok with the Erica Banks Buss It challenge.
Her TikTok hit over a million views,
and she knew she needed to drop a track and keep up the momentum.
She dropped Bully on SoundCloud and got a few thousand plays,
and in November 2021
she started buzzing in the industry with the track No Clarity.
The song grabbed the attention of Toosii,
who ended up bringing out Ice Spice for her first show.
It also led to her linking up with Dusty Locane
and performing at the college she had just dropped out of.
Spice was already popping in the city,
but back in August she dropped the track Munch and took it to the next level.
She flew out to LA to perform the track for Genius,
and when she touched down Drake slid in her DMs and said
“That munch and your on the radar freestyle hard af I’mma play em on our radio show.
Getting a cosign from Drake was huge,
and he also flew her out to OVO Fest in Toronto.
Ice Spice told Rap Caviar
“When Drake DM’d me, I did not really expect that…
Linking up with him was so cool. Like, he’s mad nice and respectful.
We went to OVO Fest. It was exciting because it was like
his first time performing in Toronto I think in like a couple of years.
So it was just a movie like, everybody was excited.”
After she was spotted chilling with Drake,
rumors started flying that they were dating
or Spice was gonna be the next rapper he signed.
But just a couple of weeks later,
fans noticed that he had unfollowed her on IG.
Nobody knows what happened behind the scenes,
but Spice told BET’s Rap City 22
He did unfollow.
“He did, I don’t know why though.”
Shame on you, Drake. Shame on you,
You shouldn't have done that.
It's okay tho, it's all love.
but Spice made it sound like they were still good and said “It’s ok. It’s all love.” In September, rumors started flying that Spice is dating Caleb McLaughlin
from the Netflix show Stranger Things.
They were seen together at Cardi B and Offset’s Fashion Night Out event in New York,
and a source told Media Take Out
“Ice Spice and Caleb are dating and are really into each other.”
Ice Spice is popping off in the rap scene,
but dating someone from Stranger Things would expose her to a whole new audience.
It’s one of the most popular shows in the world right now,
so dating one of the stars might boost her career even more.
For a rapper who’s only been in the game for a year,
there’s already all kinds of drama about Ice Spice’s personal life.
Back in September, a segs tape of her allegedly leaked online
and fans started going wild.
A lot of people thought it was Spice and Drake in the video,
but Spice squashed the rumors and tweeted
“u guys want them fake ass leaks to be me so bad
just so u can go beat your lil dirty meat to it.”
But that’s not the only drama she has going on right now.
A post from an alleged promoter started going around
where they accused Spice of pulling out of a show
and increasing her booking price by $11K.
The post said “Due to matters out of our hands
Ice Spice will no longer be attending the party.
As her status and song continue to grow daily
her team has decided to pull her off numerous shows.
They feel that she’s a much bigger artist
than she was at the time she took some of her bookings.”
Spice recently linked up with B Lovee for the track One Time.
B Lovee is one of the hottest Brooklyn drill rappers in the game,
but according to the promoter Spice’s team pulled out of the tour
they were supposed to be on together.
They wrote “They are also pulling her off the tour with Blove
because they feel like she is a bigger artist than him..”
Spice clapped back by just tweeting a cap emoji,
then she wrote “yesterday’s price not today’s price.”
It’s not clear exactly how it all went down, but hopefully
she’s not already burning bridges in the industry.
She caught a huge break when Fivio Foreign brought her out to perform at Rolling Loud,
but a lot of fans weren’t feeling her performance.
After videos of her set started going around online,
people started clowning her on social media.
Fetty Wap’s ex Masika Kalysha tweeted
“Bruh… I’m not a hater I want everyone to win I really do…
sooooooooo can someone please get ice spice some stage presence,
coaching & breath control training please.”
Spice clapped back and said that Masika is fried,
and other artists jumped in to defend her.
R&B singer Tank said “Artists nowadays aren’t given time to prepare.
Labels aren’t doing artist development.
They sign something they think is hot,
has some traction, and throw them to the wolves.
She will learn and she will grow!
The hardest part is getting a hit record and she for dam sure has that!!..
Adults be careful how you critique the kids.
If it’s not done in love or it doesn’t feel truly constructive
it will ONLY feel like hate.
Blessing to all in this crazy business.”
But that’s not the only show where the crowd wasn’t rocking with her.
Someone on TikTok posted a viral video of Spice performing Munch in a Houston club
and the audience was ice cold.
In the clip you can see Spice trying to turn the energy up,
but everyone just standing around barely moving.
Spice got a lot of comments clowning the performance again.
A lot of people said she’s already washed,
but others say Houston just ain’t the place for drill music.
Apparently, Spice wasn’t phased over the comments though
because she clapped back the next with a picture of her in the club with the caption
“pretty paid & unbothered.”
Ever since Spice popped off with No Clarity last year,
people have been accusing her of being an industry plant.
According to them, she’s been getting label offers and co-signs
from huge rappers way too fast for someone who hasn’t even dropped a full project.
And since she says her dad was an underground rapper back in the day,
people think she already had connections in the industry.
There’s really no evidence behind the rumors though.
New artists are blowing up in the New York drill scene all the time,
and social media lets rappers
with no connections at all go viral and pop off with a hot track.
Getting a co-sign from Drake was definitely huge,
but he’s always looking out for artists on the come up
so it’s not surprising he found her.
Spice talked about the industry plant rumors with Audiomack and said
“I don’t really care, ‘cause I know what it is.
I know what it took to get me here,
and I know how much work I’m putting in.
I also feel like when they say stuff like that, they don’t really mean it.
I truly feel like they know I’m not a plant.
I think they just say stuff like that
‘cause they’re mad that I’m going up faster than their fave…
If anything I would say stream your fave more.”
Ice Spice has only been in the game for a year
but she’s already made more headlines than a lot of artists do over their whole career.
There might be a lot of drama going on right now,
but if she keeps dropping hits like Munch there’s no telling how far she can take it.