Free From Her Label, Azealia Banks Goes It Alone

"It's gonna be more pressure."

Azealia Banks manages to wiggle out of an attempted kidnapping in her video for "Heavy Metal and Reflective," released Aug. 5.

Azealia Banks Records

Directed by Rob Soucy and Nick Ace, the clip was filmed earlier this summer, in the desert outside Los Angeles.

"It's supposed to be a little Tarantino kinda vibe, and it's symbolic of me getting off the label," Banks said over the phone from her apartment in Los Angeles, where she was cooking a mid-day steak.

Azealia Banks Records

Banks was released from her contract with Interscope/Polydor in July. She was signed to the label for two years, but they didn't release her debut album, Broke With Expensive Taste. Now, Banks hopes to release those songs on her own label, and move on.

Azealia Banks Records

"I've literally just been sitting here waiting to get off the label," Banks said.

"For awhile it was like, 'What is she doing? She's here, she's there, she's doing this, she's saying this. When is the album coming out?' So I'm really happy to get this project off. Cause I've already started working on a bunch of new stuff. I'm still connected to the [Broke With Expensive Taste] music, but I'm still somewhere else, with these other projects, because I know how quickly I like to move and my fan base likes to move. So I'm halfway, like one foot in Broke With Expensive Taste and one foot in the next project, and having all these other ideas. But I'm just happy that I can do whatever I want now."

Banks is known for speaking her mind, but she brushed off a question about a recent tweet some perceived as a shot at Nicki Minaj. "Nobody's even thinking about that, please," she said.

Azealia Banks Records

Her focus, she said, will be on her own work. "Now that I'm off the label it's a bit of a shock, because now it's like, 'Oh shit, it's real now.' I mean, even though I've been doing it myself the whole time anyway, now it's gonna be more pressure," she said. "I have to do it myself, I have to hire all the people, I have to find all the stuff, I have to pay all the producers, I have to do everything. It's fine, I actually don't mind. I have a good team, lawyer, manager."

"I don't feel like I've lost time or anything," she said, reflecting on her album's delay. "I feel like everything definitely happens for a reason. Stay tuned and keep watching for more music."

Azealia Banks Records

Watch Azealia Banks' "Heavy Metal and Reflective" video:

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