Of all the LinkedIn-endorsable skills the rapper Ice Spice boasts about in her music, her ability to effortlessly drag a bitch \u2014 that is, to insult someone so colorfully their humiliation is matched only by their surprise \u2014 is among her most treasured, up there with having a \u201cphat butt<\/a>\u201d and being able to take your man. And on a Friday night at Sei Less, an Asian fusion restaurant in Manhattan beloved by many a hip-hop star and NBA player, I witness this particular gift firsthand when I mention to Ice Spice that I am a spendthrift incapable of leaving the house without immediately opening my wallet. Sitting beside me in the restaurant\u2019s conference-room-sized private suite, she widens her eyes in shock. \u201cPeople that aren\u2019t good at saving scare me!\u201d she exclaims, her voice rising a few degrees above her usual measured rasp. \u201cThat means if we were stranded on an island together, and we only had one ration of food, you would let me starve because you wouldn\u2019t know how to save it!\u201d<\/p>\n I assure her that I would never let the artist responsible for such nonsense-brilliant masterpieces as \u201cMunch (Feelin\u2019 U)\u201d<\/a> go hungry in a hypothetical Lost<\/em> scenario. I would obviously put her <\/em>in charge of the rations. But this only elicits another horror-giggle. \u201cOh my God, you really can\u2019t<\/em> save!\u201d she continues. \u201cYou don\u2019t even trust yourself to ration off your own food!\u201d<\/p>\n Ice Spice can lecture me about financial responsibility because, well, she has a lot of money and came into it very quickly. We had been deep in conversation about all the unpredictable ways your life changes when you suddenly become the toast of the music business, and eye-popping bank statements rank high among the perks \u2014 if only, according to Ice Spice, for the stability they bring, and if only you know what to do with them. \u201cI haven\u2019t even invested into any bonds, and I am just getting into that now,\u201d she says. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m a little behind because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Ice Spice rests easy knowing she can afford to take care of her family. She can afford to live where she wants. A Bronx native, she briefly moved to New Jersey after her career blew up but has since returned to this side of the Hudson after realizing the Garden State was \u201ceven more not low-key.\u201d And while she\u2019s not above a splurge \u2014 \u201cI also like luxurious things too, which is nice that fame sometimes unlocks cool stuff\u201d \u2014 she prides herself on keeping her expenses to \u201csimple sh*t.\u201d \u201cI feel like I\u2019ll be OK my whole time here on Earth because I\u2019m just so good at saving, no matter what happens,\u201d she says sagely. And she has been thinking a lot about what happens next, because she is planning to stick around for a long time.<\/p>\n In contemporary American pop culture, Ice Spice is the closest thing we have to a Cinderella story \u2014 if Cinderella had arrived at the ball wearing a pistachio-green tube top and sporting a spectacular head of Fanta-orange curly hair. It\u2019s not even much of an exaggeration to say her career took off overnight<\/em> if you were alive and online in August 2022, when \u201cMunch,\u201d a brief yet belligerent swaggerfest, ran over algorithms and attention spans with the force of a bulldozer. Suddenly, the artist born Isis Naija Gaston (\u201cIt sucks, because I can never find my keychain\u201d) went from being an aspiring rapper of modest online virality to an instantly recognizable New York City mascot. Drake was playing her song on his radio station. Taylor Swift was hitting her up to recruit her for the \u201cKarma\u201d remix<\/a>. Kim Kardashian was flying her out to make TikToks with her brood of chronically online Kardashian kids. Her fanbase spans Gen Alphas who just started high school to 40-something white guys who form their rap opinions by listening to The New York Times<\/em>\u2019 Popcast<\/em>. She collaborated with Nicki Minaj, her rap idol, not once<\/a> but twice<\/a> before she even released her debut album, Y2K!<\/em>, which is named for her birthday: Jan. 1, 2000.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still a regular person. Me and my bestie always talk about this. She\u2019s always like, \u2018Bro, people don\u2019t know how normal you are!\u2019\u201d Ice Spice says, dressed casually in a Betty Boop I\u2661NY tee, bejeweled cross necklace, and denim cutoffs. Earlier during our dinner of noodles and chicken satay, I inadvertently taught her about lore<\/em>, aka the internet narratives that inform a pop star\u2019s output, and she delights in reciting the term back to me. \u201cI literally am the girl next door. That\u2019s not my lore \u2014 that\u2019s my swag!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were trying to say that I\u2019m not a lyricist. But I figured I\u2019d let you know that I definitely<\/i> knew I was. The whole time.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n With her great warp-speed rise, however, came great warp-speed hostility, and Ice Spice\u2019s detractors have polarized around two main gripes. The first contends that she is a flash-in-the-pan viral curiosity, which Ice Spice consistently addresses with the same nonchalant charisma that made her a star in the first place. \u201cEverybody was tryna be like, \u2018Ohhhhhhh, she a one-hit-wonder da-da-da-da-daahhhh.\u2019 But it\u2019s like, \u2018Now what? Two-hit wonder?\u2019\u201d she said in a video interview with the lyric annotation site Genius<\/a> in 2022, just after releasing follow-up single \u201cBikini Bottom.\u201d<\/a> The clip became its own hit on social media; one user even set it to a beat, showcasing in one fell swoop her can\u2019t-help-it attitude for rap fame. (And for the record, she currently has four Top 10 Billboard <\/em>Hot 100 hits to her name.)<\/p>\n \u201cSuch a silly girl,\u201d Ice Spice says, shaking her head when I remind her of this moment. She occasionally watches her old interviews, she tells me, and they inspire the blanched horror that only a newly minted 25-year-old can summon for their primordial 22-year-old self. \u201cClearly, I was always just feeling, like, \u2018Oh my God, I need to be better than my last time,\u2019 you know?\u201d Not that her drive is a bad thing. \u201cHonestly, the pressure\u2019s great,\u201d she says. \u201cI think the girls [in rap] also enjoy the friendly competition amongst each other. I feel like that\u2019s what keeps the spark.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, she wishes she hadn\u2019t taken everything so<\/em> seriously from the jump. She had only been making music for a matter of months, after meeting producer RIOTUSA \u2014 son of longtime Hot 97 personality DJ Enuff \u2014 while attending the State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase College, and she acknowledges that underneath the grinning brashness of the video, there was still a young woman shouldering incessant internet vitriol and struggling not to show it. \u201cI think it\u2019s so sweet, and you can tell that I\u2019m so excited and grateful to be here, and I\u2019m so happy to have proven people wrong. But I can read that all over me in the clip! I\u2019m, like, \u2018Damn, girl, relax! It\u2019s OK!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The second gripe from the commentariat is that she doesn\u2019t seem to try hard enough. Or hard at all. That her tossed-off lyrics take streaming-era rap\u2019s penchant for vibes<\/em> over storytelling to an unbearable conclusion. That the woman who once dubbed herself \u201cMs. Poopie\u201d has an overreliance on scatalogical metaphors to convey her excellency, peaking with the gastrointestinal genius of \u201cThink U the Sh*t (Fart),\u201d<\/a> on which she taunts an enemy for adorably assuming they have the structural integrity of a solid stool when, in fact, they are merely flatulence. Never mind that in today\u2019s I-don\u2019t-dream-of-labor pop cultural landscape, appearing <\/em>agnostic to work (regardless of how much labor you\u2019re actually putting in) is downright aspirational: Dua Lipa, the originator of go-girl-give-us-nothing memes, is beloved by her fans for perpetually being on vacation. Videos abound of Blackpink\u2019s Jennie seemingly phoning in choreography on the group\u2019s recent stadium tour, and somehow this defiant streak only makes her cooler. Making an effort? In this<\/em> economy? Please.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to sound toxic, but I feel like if you crash out at a point, that just means you\u2019re really in love.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Ice never really engaged with the criticism about her rapping ability. She wonders now, however, if her refusal to acknowledge or participate in the discourse allowed her online haters to have an outsize influence. \u201cI think my mistake was basically… What\u2019s the word? Letting people feel like they were right a little bit,\u201d she says. \u201cLike people were trying to say that I\u2019m not a lyricist, and I just kind of went in with the attitude of \u2018Yeah, they\u2019re right. I\u2019m not.\u2019 But it\u2019s just not true.\u201d She sounds almost somber as she relays this. \u201cI didn\u2019t really feel like having to prove that. But I figured I\u2019d let you know that I definitely<\/em> knew I was [a lyricist]. The whole time. I just let them say what they want and be happy with that.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides, in their dismissals of her lyricism, the purists had missed an obvious key to her massive popularity. Remember fun?<\/em> People like fun songs. And if there was ever one nonnegotiable truth about an Ice Spice song, it was that they are simply overflowing with it: her many guttural grrraahhs<\/em> that reject polished perfection; phonetically contagious hooks that seem designed to be lip-synced to; and her banger one-liners that deliver ugly truths about sex, ambition, competition, jealousy, and infidelity with the same naked clarity as Nietzsche talking about staring out into the abyss (see: \u201cOh you cheatin\u2019? Then I\u2019m cheatin\u2019 back,\u201d from the Central Cee collaboration \u201cDid It First\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cIce Spice has always been so iconic. She took over the world a couple years ago, and I think everybody \u2014 especially the six of us \u2014 were such big fans of her,\u201d says Lara Raj of the girl group KATSEYE<\/a>, which teamed up with Ice Spice this year for a remix of their single \u201cGnarly.\u201d<\/a> Considering that \u201cGnarly\u201d is, at its core, a tribute to the culture-shifting power of young people adopting a random word and repeating it in until it means everything and nothing, Ice Spice made for an ideal partner. \u201cWe were like, \u2018What the fuck? Ice Spice? That is just so crazy,\u2019\u201d Raj says. \u201cIt really added so much to the song.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTaylor said, \u2018As long as you keep making music, everything\u2019s going to be fine.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is so easy to get swept up making TikToks to Ice Spice songs that you can miss their accidental profundity. \u201cBikini Bottom\u201d opens with a line that could be the basis for another Mel Robbins self-help book: \u201cHow can I lose if I\u2019m already chose?\u201d <\/em>(\u201cSometimes I just think about that line,\u201d Ice tells me.) The duh-duh-da<\/em> flow of her verse on the PinkPantheress collaboration \u201cBoy\u2019s a Liar Pt. 2,\u201d<\/a> a song in the time-honored tradition of two girls coming together to cuss out a worthless man, is so mesmerizing that it almost disguises her anguish elsewhere: \u201cBut I don\u2019t sleep enough without you \/ And I can\u2019t eat enough without you \/ If you don\u2019t speak, does that mean we\u2019re through? \/ Don\u2019t like sneaky sh*t that you do \u2014 grrah!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an anthem that could only have been written by someone who understands that love and pain are often deeply intertwined. Ice Spice \u2014 a romance-novel reader who just embarked on Sarah J. Maas\u2019 A Court of Thorns and Roses <\/em>\u2014 thinks a lot of her songs are secretly love songs, even if the characters in them are in an escalating arms race of infidelity. \u201cI don\u2019t want to sound toxic, but I feel like if you crash out at a point, that just means you\u2019re really in love,\u201d she offers. Has she ever been in love? \u201cI\u2019m pretty sure I have been, I think. Because if that was not love, I don\u2019t know what that was.\u201d But on the prospect of falling in love again, she is not bullish. \u201cYou know what literally sucks about dating me personally is that I genuinely do care about my career and my craft, just so much more than I do about my love life. And I really hate that for whoever\u2019s dating me. Because I\u2019m just always going to put those things first. My career, craft, family, me, then maybe somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s also skeptical of a potential partner using her for clout. \u201cYou know what my fear is? An ex attaching themselves to a story, like, \u2018I\u2019m the one she\u2019s talking about there. Here\u2019s a thread of how,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cJust waiting for me to start talking, so they can get their viral TikTok moment.\u201d That kind of behavior is beneath her: \u201cI do believe everything is a butterfly effect and a domino effect. Everything\u2019s connected, so I wouldn\u2019t even want to talk down on anyone because who knows who might bump into each other later.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think the girls enjoy the friendly competition. That\u2019s what keeps the spark.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Up until the release of her debut album in July 2024 and her first tour that followed, Ice had worked at breakneck speed for three whole years, hell-bent on maximizing her moment, knowing full well that what the internet giveth, the internet also taketh away. But this year, she has allowed herself to finally relax a little and step back from the grind of keeping herself in the zeitgeist. \u201cI have not dropped a music video in a year. Which I have never<\/em> done,\u201d she says, laughing. She went upstate to Lake George with her family. (Does she drive? \u201cI\u2019m a passenger princess.\u201d) She went to Las Vegas with her best friend and her producer. (\u201cJust having fun, playing Ping-Pong and drinking wine.\u201d) A brand deal with Mercedes-Benz meant attending an event in Rome, so she took a friend with her and \u201chad gelato and pizza until we were so f*cking bloated, it hurt.\u201d She even went to Germany to visit the company\u2019s factories and see how the cars are made, which she recounts with the guileless enthusiasm of a first-timer at Disneyland: \u201cThat was crazy! I got to test out cars and the professional drivers were taking us around the track.\u201d<\/p>\n Behind the scenes, she was also kicking a spot of writers\u2019 block with the aid of Roger von Oech\u2019s classic manual, A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative. <\/em>\u201cIt\u2019s helpful for any profession, any age,\u201d she says, then summarizing her takeaway: \u201cNo matter how successful you are or what you have achieved, you should just kind of be grateful for why whatever it was that you did worked, but then also try to evolve it.\u201d So, as she hit the studio for her next body of work, she took a different approach \u2014 one that might actually prove some of her haters wrong. If her previous material sounded too casual, like she was making it up as she went along, that\u2019s because she was. But now, \u201cinstead of constantly freestyling and punching in only,\u201d she says, \u201cI started writing on the writer\u2019s pads that they have at the studio. I\u2019ll just write and then record it. Or play the beat, write, then record. Or sometimes I\u2019ll even stop the beat, which is new for me.\u201d<\/p>\n RIOTUSA says that while her ambitions haven\u2019t changed \u2014 \u201cWe only want to continue creating amazing art that will last and live beyond ourselves\u201d \u2014 the thought she puts into her work has. \u201cShe is more self-aware of her creative choices, from the tempos, the sound selections, topics, down to which words she uses,\u201d he says. \u201cI want them to know she really does care about her craft and is prideful in staying true to herself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat sucks about dating me is that I care about my career and my craft so much more than my love life.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The first new single from this phase, \u201cBaddie Baddie,\u201d<\/a> samples M.I.A.\u2019s \u201cBad Girls\u201d<\/a> and takes stock of her career thus far: \u201cThey said they wanted a bop, I was just poppin\u2019 my sh*t \/ I ain\u2019t even really mean to go pop.\u201d She had just finished mixing the song a week before our dinner, and she promises that the accompanying music video is going to have plenty of her signature brand of chaotic overstimuli. \u201cI do love a chaotic visual,\u201d she says. \u201cThey send it to me a little chill, and I\u2019m like, \u2018Chop it up more!\u2019 That\u2019s why I\u2019m very excited to drop a visual more than anything, and I\u2019m going to pace myself. When I drop this visual, I\u2019m going to let my fans soak it up. I\u2019m<\/em> going to soak it up.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time you read this, Ice will also have made her cinematic debut. Typically, when successful musicians cross over to the screen, they choose one of two paths: a prestige project with an auteur of a director and Oscar-winning co-stars or big fun blockbuster IP. Ice is doing both. In the same year. She\u2019s currently on Apple TV+ in Highest 2 Lowest<\/em>, Spike Lee\u2019s A24-produced remake of Akira Kurosawa\u2019s 1963 classic High and Low<\/em>. She has a brief role and just a few lines, but she does share screen space with none other than Denzel Washington. It\u2019s a momentous thing for her short career, the kind that some actors wait their entire lives for. \u201cWell, I waited my whole life too, a little bit,\u201d she says shyly. \u201cMy dad is so proud of me for landing this.\u201d Did Denzel know who she was? She didn\u2019t ask. \u201cBut I did not look like myself, so he might\u2019ve not even known! If he does know who I am, he probably didn\u2019t know that was me. I swear!\u201d (I try to persuade her to stunt-cast him in one of her music videos, the way Rihanna did with Mads Mikkelsen for \u201cBitch Better Have My Money.\u201d<\/a> \u201cOh my God,\u201d she giggles, \u201cwhy do I feel like he would be down?\u201d)<\/p>\n Her other film project is much more on brand for the \u201cBikini Bottom\u201d hitmaker: Voicing a character in the The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants<\/em>, which hits theaters in December. The second she found out they were making a SpongeBob movie and wanted her<\/em> to have any association with it? She was in. \u201cI went to the studio and they had my cup of tea ready for me, and they were like, \u2018These are your lines. This is your character.\u2019 And I just fell in love.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI literally am the girl next door. That\u2019s not my lore \u2014 that\u2019s my swag!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A rapper\u2019s myth and empire are incomplete without their many side hustles and business ventures \u2014 no matter what form they may take (selling liquor, sweatpants, or the Fyre Festival). It\u2019s easy to wonder if Ice Spice\u2019s forays into acting are an early start on this portfolio diversification, preparing her for a potential second act as a hip-hop personality<\/em> \u2014 like how LL Cool J still occasionally makes albums but probably makes more money hosting awards shows and popping up on NCIS. <\/em>\u201cI mean, my dream is to be retired by 35, but is that even realistic?\u201d Ice Spice says. \u201cProbably not. I\u2019m American. We work until we die.\u201d Even if you\u2019re good at saving.<\/p>\n But then she remembers some solid life advice that she received from one Taylor Swift. \u201cThe thing about Taylor is that she keeps it so real. Not even kidding, but one of the biggest things that I always think about that Taylor said is \u2018As long as you keep making music, everything\u2019s going to be fine,\u2019\u201d she recalls. The two of them don\u2019t always talk shop \u2014 \u201cEvery time we hang out, she\u2019s not just giving me advice, you know what I mean? We\u2019re talking about the food we\u2019re eating or whatever\u2019s going on in the moment\u201d \u2014 but \u201cwhenever I\u2019m feeling doubtful or not as confident, having writer\u2019s block no matter what it is, things like that really, really stand out to me,\u201d she adds. \u201cShe said that to me a few years ago, and it still stood with me.\u201d<\/p>\n That bit of wisdom reminds her of another story. Before she had made a single song, Ice got a job working retail at the Gap and introduced herself at a new-hire orientation: Hi! My name\u2019s Isis, and I like music!<\/em> \u201cSometimes I sit and I think about that and I cringe so f*cking hard,\u201d she says. But Ice Spice is trying harder to honor that girl in everything she does now. \u201cWhen I\u2019m watching something back of mine, I\u2019m like, \u2018Would young me think she\u2019s cool?\u2019 You know what I mean?\u201d She pauses to think. And then answers: \u201cYoung me would be kind of obsessed.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Top image credit<\/em>: Dsquared2 shawl, Stylist\u2019s own top and shorts, Talent\u2019s own jewelry, belt, and shoes<\/em><\/p>\n Photographs by Lea Winkler<\/em><\/p>\n Styling by Zoey Radford Scott<\/em><\/p>\n Editor in Chief: <\/em>Lauren McCarthy<\/em><\/p>\n SVP Creative: Karen Hibbert<\/em><\/p>\n Set Designer:<\/em> Rosie Turnbull<\/em><\/p>\n Hair:<\/em> <\/em>Dionte Gray<\/em><\/p>\n Makeup: <\/em>Karina Milan<\/em><\/p>\n Tailor: Jessica Yuen<\/em><\/p>\n Fashion Assistant: <\/em>Alexia Barritt<\/em><\/p>\n Lead Set Design Assistant: <\/em>Joonie Jang<\/em><\/p>\n Set Design Assistant: <\/em>Max Pavlichenko<\/em><\/p>\n Production Assistant: <\/em>Lyman Creason<\/em>, <\/em>Joel Cruz<\/em><\/p>\n Cat: <\/em>All Creatures Great and Small<\/em><\/p>\n Post-production<\/em>:<\/em> INK<\/em><\/p>\n Senior Photo Producer: Kiara Brown<\/em><\/p>\n Production:<\/em> Danielle Smit and Cassidy Gill<\/em><\/p>\n Photo Director: Jackie Ladner<\/em><\/p>\n Fashion Market Director: Jennifer Yee<\/em><\/p>\n Fashion Market: Stephanie Sanchez, Ashirah Curry, Noelia Rojas-West<\/em><\/p>\n Video: <\/em>Konstantin Yelisevich<\/em><\/p>\n Social Assistant: <\/em>Katherine Diermissen<\/em><\/p>\n Talent Bookings: Special Projects<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/4\/3de1f3c8\/87337_lwi_icespice_x_nylon_026_04v2_v3_rgb.jpg?w=375&h=276&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/4\/e6285c80\/87337_lwi_icespice_x_nylon_042_16_v3_rgb.jpg?w=375&h=277&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/4\/763b0f37\/87337_lwi_icespice_x_nylon_005_06v2_v4_rgb.jpg?w=375&h=500&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/4\/0956ff1f\/87337_lwi_icespice_x_nylon_036_11v2_v9_rgb.jpg?w=375&h=243&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/4\/dacf6cf1\/87337_lwi_icespice_x_nylon_006_10v4_v3_rgb.jpg?w=375&h=482&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/4\/f0ca6228\/87337_lwi_icespice_x_nylon_039_02v2_v5_rgb.jpg?w=375&h=580&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/imgix.bustle.com\/uploads\/image\/2025\/9\/9\/a1b17eec\/nylon_ice-spice_credit-lea-winkler_social.jpg?w=268&h=335&fit=crop&crop=faces&dpr=2\")
<\/div>\n