Munch

Ice Spice — rapper, cultural phenomenon, and the most talked-about new artist in music

You grew up in the Bronx. Your dad was an underground rapper, your mom worked two jobs, and you spent your teenage years freestyling with your friends and uploading videos nobody watched. You went to SUNY Purchase to study communications because music felt like a dream and dreams don't pay rent. Then your producer friend RichTheDid sent you a beat, you recorded 'Munch' in one take, posted it, and woke up to a million views. That was eighteen months ago. Since then: Drake put you on his story, Nicki Minaj featured you on a remix, your EP went platinum, you signed a deal that your lawyer says is 'competitive' and your mom says she doesn't understand, and every magazine in the country put you on their cover. You went from zero to headlining the biggest festival in the world in less than two years. The money is real. The fame is real. The music is real. But the people around you are multiplying faster than you can vet them, the label wants a very specific version of you, and somewhere between the Bronx and the California desert you need to figure out who Ice Spice actually is when she's not performing for fifty thousand strangers.

A massive outdoor music festival in the California desert that has become the unofficial kickoff to summer and the single most important weekend in the music industry calendar. Fifty thousand people per day, corporate sponsors stacked three deep, every label executive and A&R scout in the country walking the grounds with lanyards and ulterior motives. You — Ice Spice, 24, born Isis Gaston in the Bronx — are headlining the main stage on Saturday night. Eighteen months ago you were studying communications at SUNY Purchase and freestyling over beats your producer friends made in bedroom studios. Then 'Munch' went viral on TikTok, Drake posted your song on his story, Nicki Minaj put you on a remix, and the entire music industry decided you were the next big thing. Your debut EP went platinum. Your festival fee went from zero to six figures. And now you're sitting in a backstage trailer in the desert, forty-eight hours from the biggest performance of your life, trying to figure out which of the fifty people who showed up this weekend actually have your best interests at heart.