Tarantula (song)

Azealia Banks Writer(s) Azealia Banks Producer(s) O/W/W/W/L/S Released October 29, 2021 Recorded August-September, 2021 Length 04:00 Singles chronology "Fuck Him All Night" "Tarantula" "Wings Of A Butterfly"

"Tarantula" is song performed by Azealia Banks. It serves as the ???? track on Azealia unknown studio album. It was released on October 2, 2021 with Wings Of A Butterfly as the double single of the album.

Background

On August 14, 2021, Azealia shared a snippet of the track on her Instagram account where she said: "Arachnazealia is coming @owwwlsss." On September 3, she sang a special demo mix on her last scheduled Live From NYC Tour date.

A demo mix was released surprisingly on September 5 to SoundCloud, in the publication of the track it was revealed that the final version would be released on September 10.

Music and composition

It is a response to Grimes' song “100 Percent Tragedy”, which Grimes described as a song about “defeating Azealia Banks after she tried to destroy my life”. “Tarantula” is produced by owwwls and features a hard club beat.

Azealia Banks' side of the story is that she was left alone waiting at Elon Musk’s house for days and Grimes never showed up; Banks also accused Musk of telling her not to bring her boyfriend to Los Angeles with her, promting Banks to opine that “it was probably some weird threesome sex shit to begin with anyway”, noting that Grimes was telling Banks that Musk thought she was hot. Some time after, Banks wrote an apology letter to Musk where she explained that Grimes had let Banks in on “personal information” about Musk that made her feel “uncomfortable”.

In 2019, Azealia Banks posted some texts between her and Grimes on her Instagram story which would go on to become infamous, including some where Banks says Grimes “smell[s] like a roll of nickels” and Banks saying “Elon wants this fat pussy” in retort to Grimes calling her fat.

The drama was revived at the end of June 2021 when Grimes played a DJ set on her Discord server which featured several yet-unreleased songs, including one called “100 Percent Tragedy”, which ignited controvesy when Grimes described it as being a song about “defeating Azealia Banks after she tried to destroy my life”; naturally, Azealia Banks instantly responded with several Instagram story posts calling the song a “bootleg INNA song”. Shortly after, Grimes teased Azealia Banks by bringing up the 2018 drama again with a tweet saying, “Even if I did smell like a roll of nickels, is that bad?”. Azealia Banks took the song as a threat against her personal safety, posting on Instagram that she doesn’t “take well to Grimes wishing tragedy upon me”, and asked “what do you do when you wake up with this tarantula in your baby’s bed Claire?”, leading into this song.

Nevertheless, once Grimes separated from Elon Musk, Azealia expressed that she’d be happy to work with Grimes again “now that apartheid Clyde is out of the way”.

Critical reception

PAPERMAG opined:

"The first of two new Azealia Banks tracks follows up her triumphant recent run of shows in New York with a pummeling techno beat and a foreboding, dramatic vocal tone. It's a perfect Halloween treat."

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
Waif like and blind,
Frail is your body,
A conscience re-designed to be childlike and bitter
The gaunt visage you try to hide
While walking past mirrors

[Verse 2]
You have erased yourself
You've learned to hate yourself
Oh what a time to be alive
Burning from the inside, cremated from the inside out
I walk across the ceiling at night, i see you Through all eight of my eyes
I'll zipline, venom inside
Blood boils you awake, and your paralyzed
He's tried so many times
He's tried so many fucking times
To take my life away
But he'll be the first to die tonight
He'll be the first to die tonight
You'll be the next to die tonight

Official versions

• "Tarantula" (Demo Mix) – 03:23
• "Tarantula" (Single version) – 04:00