If there is one thing the world loves more than to watch someone fall, it’s to watch someone make a comeback. Five years since The New Classic and the various hits that made her a household name, Iggy Azalea has been to career hell and back. The public tore her down as fast as they made her and her former record label had no clue what to do with her after she decided she wanted to leave the pop collaborations in the past (see the scrapped sophomore album and the abysmal handling of 2018’s Survive The Summer). But with ‘Sally Walker’, Azalea is making up for lost time.

The first single off her upcoming sophomore record In My Defence and the first released through her own record label Bad Dreams Records, ‘Sally Walker’ marks Azalea taking control of her career and if the pure campness of the track’s concept and its video are anything to go by, she’s back with a vengeance. Azalea’s ideas are pretty smart lyric wise with the verses using some nice pop culture references and full of flex in the vein of every other rap song getting any airplay these day but the highlight is the true brilliance of the hook. Referencing a nursery rhyme is one thing but basing your entire track and flow around somehow making it one of the catchiest choruses of the year so far is a whole other level.

The production is quite similar to every other trap song in the top ten but you can hear the influence of J. White from a mile away. In fact, the production is quite close to White’s recent Cardi B effort ‘Money’ but the presence of actual personality on ‘Sally Walker’ saves it from the same fate as that track, instead being one of the catchier efforts from a female rapper since Cardi’s own ‘I Like It’ – and that’s damn impressive. In fact, ‘Sally Walker’ may just be a fun banger on the surface, but its ability to not only stand next to its contemporaries, but to do so without the backing of a major label (or even a minor album for that matter) is the ultimate flex.