A Field Guide To Iggy Azalea

Over the past week plus, we've heard a whole lot of hubbub about a rumored Iggy Azalea sex tape (and no, we're not talking about that bootylicious Jennifer Lopez music video she was heavily – and near nakedly – featured in). As fans of both Azalea's body and her body of work (particularly the music video wherein she channels Phoebe Cates) we're very interested in this development. For those of you who are only just hearing of Iggy Azalea (presumably because you've just emerged from some cave under a rock where you've spent the last year and change), we've put together a brief primer on who she is, and why you might be interested in seeing her sex tape (assuming it ever ends up on the market).

Iggy Azalea – born Amethyst Amelia Kelly – came into this big, wide world twenty-four years ago, on June 7, 1990, in Sydney, Australia; as an infant, her family relocated to Mullumbimby, New South Wales. Like many young artists, she found her calling at an early age, deciding at fourteen that she wanted to be a rapper. Initially she tried to go the group route, forming a rap collective with two neighborhood girls; when her partners in music weren't taking the project seriously enough, she decided to break up the band and go it alone.

But how does a girl in New South Wales launch a professional rap career? First and foremost, by getting the hell out of New South Wales. Once she knew that rap was her destiny, Iggy decided she had to make her way to America; figuring that the birthplace of hip hop would be the best place to unleash her new hip hop identity. Back in Australia, she quit school and started working as a cleaning lady to raise money to fund her trip; she then bought a plane ticket to Miami, telling her parents she was just going on vacation. Why she picked Miami and not, say the Boogie Down Bronx, we'll never know – but once she found herself on the fair shores of the USA, she knew she was gonna stay for good. Iggy told her parents that – like many adventurers before her – her destiny lay in the great country of America; she then set off to figure out how, exactly, she was going to go about achieving her hip hop goals.

First and foremost, she had to pick a name (or maybe the first step was getting her GED or her visa waiver, we're not actually sure what order she did stuff in). Fittingly for someone being profiled on Fleshbot, Iggy chose her rap identity using the classic porn name formula: she drew her first name from the name of a childhood dog, while Azalea happened to be the street she grew up on (and where her parents still reside). Name locked in, she then proceeded to polish her performing. After bouncing around the country, Azalea settled in Atlanta, GA, where she hooked up with a member of the Dungeon Family hip hop collective and started practicing her rap game. Her early rhymes were met mostly with derision, but she shook off the laughs (as a high school outcast, she'd been used to mockery), and kept on keeping on. And her hard work paid off: in 2010 she hooked up with an Interscope Records employee who encouraged her to move out to LA – once there, she was briefly managed by Interscope, and started to really work on her rap career. And the rest is, well, music history.

We'd tell you all about Iggy's various EPs and LPs and what have you, but let's be serious: though her music is fun, it's not what we're all here for (well, aside from those alluring music videos, amirite?). We're here for Iggy's abundant sexiness – which she's displayed in spades. In addition to the aforementioned alluring music videos, there's also her modeling work (both fashion and whatever this is considered) and very sexy fashion sense. Oh, and yes, the aforementioned music video.

What's it like for a girl who grew up in New South Wales to record a track, and bump nearly bare booties with, with the legendary J. Lo? According to Iggy herself, it was "surreal." As she told E!, "she's somebody that I've sung her music back in cars with friends and in bedroom mirrors over the years" – and now the two of them have been immortalized in swimsuits and lubricant, for ever and ever. Hey, it ain't bad for a girl from Australia who dreamed of becoming a star, right?

We can't say where the future will take Iggy Azalea, but something tells us it'll involve a whole lot more bare skin. Even if that sex tape never makes it to market, Iggy doesn't seem to be the shy type... which, hey, is one of the most charming things about her.