Iggy Azalea is lost. Running behind schedule, the Australian rapper drove straight past the photoshoot off Sunset Boulevard and now has to re-route. She pulls into the lot in her black Rolls Royce. She's alone. She climbs out of the car and walks straight through the studio. Her face looks beige and lifeless. Her eyes are truly, visibly sad. Not Bambi eyes sad, either: sad like the eyes of someone who is fed up. Too fed up to cry. She drags her feet along the floor in Balenciaga sliders. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

Re-positioning is hard for Iggy in 2018. Her career is not what it was. In 2014, she was the most successful female rapper to emerge since Nicki Minaj. Her debut album The New Classic (released on Def Jam) was nominated for four Grammys and enjoyed a hat-trick of hits: “Fancy” (featuring Charli XCX), “Black Widow” (with Rita Ora) and “Work.” She duetted with Ariana Grande on the pop star’s hit “Problem” and became the first act since the Beatles to hold both the Number 1 and 2 positions for debut entries on the Billboard 100. (Let’s note though, that’s not because they were good hip-hop records. They were accessible hip-hop records featuring mimicable Southern-aping rhymes and trap-lite production; dumb popular in the way that Kygo or Marshmello or G-Eazy are currently.) She was the protege of TI. He's since distanced himself. Many have distanced themselves. Way back when, Iggy Azalea was selling more hip-hop records than Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West and Jay Z. “Mm-hmm,” she nods. You wonder if it's maybe a surprise that people don't—

She cuts me off. “Remember that? Acknowledge it ever? Didn't then? Don't now? Does that surprise me?!” She spits out “surprise” like a piece of rotting fruit. “No, it doesn't surprise me. People would like to pretend I never existed. I don't think they wanted me to be successful to begin with. A-ha-ha-aha.” These “a-ha-ha-aha”s are over-the-top nervy laughs that pepper the entire hour. (Nothing we talk about is especially funny.) The laugh ends abruptly when I ask: Really, why? “Um.” She lowers her head, she softens her voice and with a look of unequivocal shame she responds. “Because I'm a white woman from Australia.”

Iggy Azalea hates having to talk about this but she must. She must because people hate Iggy Azalea. We live in the age of division and disagreement but if there is one matter in 2018 that unites music fans, critics and passers-by it is that Iggy Azalea is bad. We are not here to defend Iggy. Iggy must defend herself. If her career is ever to recover (a question looming heavily in the air), she first owes America an apology. She has come to represent something far bigger than just the human I see before me. She is a symbol for everything that’s wrong with the whitening of hip-hop in a streaming era that thrives on vanilla. Sure she’s not the first white rapper. The Beastie Boys, Eminem, Vanilla Ice, Macklemore have been here before. But Iggy is the first to talk with an Australian accent IRL and rap like she grew up next door to Clipse in Virginia.

She hasn’t had an easy ride. Her relationship with Def Jam has been fraught. An arena tour in 2015 was cancelled. She reveals today that she pulled it because six weeks out the label hadn't released funds for rehearsals or hires. "Insanity!" she says. At the time Def Jam hid behind the convenient gossip of her relationship ending, thus hanging her out to dry (according to Iggy). Her second album, Digital Distortion, was scrapped. Last June, Def Jam CEO Steve Bartels told Variety that the album was a “building process.” After two 2017 flop singles in “Switch” and “Mo Bounce,” that statement turned out to be baloney.