Ice Spice has shared her side of the story to how she came to be the featured artist on Taylor Swift‘s “Karma” remix, a collaboration which resulted in Ice getting her first ever Billboard Hot 100 No. 2, the chance to perform three times for a sold out crowd at MetLife Stadium and a long-lasting friendship with one of the biggest pop stars on the planet.
“I was home and my manager called me, and was like, ‘Oh, Taylor wants you on a record.’ And I’m like, ‘Taylor?’” the 23-year-old rapper recalled to Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1’s “Up Next” series. “I was having a really bad day also, I would like to say that. I was having a terrible day. I was crying all morning because I was just so mad at something. And then he called me with that news. And then I cried more, because it was good news.”
“My life is a rollercoaster,” she added. “How I started the day crying and I’m ending it crying, but for different reasons.”
Ice also took Lowe through the process of recording her parts on “Karma,” which she called “amazing.” “We went to the studio and [Taylor] is so humble and so nice,” she said. “I kid you not. I pulled up to the studio and she outside waiting for me. So she’s great. She’s so funny. We text all the time. She is f–king hilarious. I’m not going to lie. She’s the funniest person ever.”
At the first of three Eras Tour shows in East Rutherford back in May, Swift herself shared that she had been a major fan of Ice’s even before learning that the young star was interested in collaborating. “What she didn’t know at the time is that when I was training for the tour, I was listening to pretty much exclusively just her music every single day,” the “Anti-Hero” singer revealed before debuting the “Karma” music video at the show. “So we immediately went into the studio and I just not only fell in love with her, but just decided she’s the entire future.”
Later that night, Ice surprised the audience by taking the stage for the show’s finale, rapping her “Karma” verse before exiting the stage with Swift’s arm around her shoulders.
“The roar that you hear in a Taylor Swift show is unmatched,” Ice recalled to Lowe. “But her show was amazing, and I’m just so grateful. Like 200,000 people, I think we performed for.”
The Bronx native also touched on her relationships with mentors like Nicki Minaj, with whom she’s turned in two collaborations (“Princess Diana” and a remix of Aqua’s “Barbie World” for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie), and Drake. “I feel like I am absorbing advice from [Nicki] and learning from her and stuff,” she shared. And she’ll tell me, ‘Learn from my mistake, do this or don’t do that,’ or whatever. And I just really pay attention to what she’s saying. Because if there’s anyone I’m going to listen to it’s the queen.”
“We talk all the time and we’re always just laughing about some things that go on,” she added of Drizzy. “And I’ll ask him, ‘What should I do with this? Or how’d you go about this? Or did you ever experience that?’ It’s like coach vibes.”
Listen to Ice Spice’s Apple Music 1 interview above.
