Ice Spice’s New York Show Was a Coronation For a Budding Icon

Ice Spice, Cash Cobain, and their New York crowd may have been robbed of seeing the exciting duo amid the beautiful views of Manhattan’s Pier 17 — but they made due at Terminal 5. Rainy weather made the westside Manhattan venue the alternate choice for the second-turned-first leg of their two-night hometown stand of Ice Spice’s Y2k! tour. Pier 17 and Terminal 5 hold roughly the same capacity, meaning no Munchkins were left outside for Ice’s big night. 

The 24-year-old Bronx rhymer is a rap sensation, distinguishing herself from the glut of New York artists with 2022’s “Munch” and rapidly ascending since then with a slew of choice singles and collaborations with the likes of Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, PinkPantheress, and others. It also doesn’t hurt that she’s a fashion-forward artist who finds herself heavily thirsted after.

Perhaps that’s why Y2K is a fitting aesthetic choice. Ice is a throwback artist to a time when pop stars discerned how much they offered the public. In an era of oversharing, Ice Spice’s old tweets — and our September cover story — feel like the closest rap fans will get to who Isis is beyond the persona. Her Terminal 5 moment was the first intimate glimpse for many fans. Ironically,  it feels like the hometown crowd ended up receiving less than other locations on the Y2K! World Tour. 

The night began with influencer-turned-rapper Cleotrapa offering a couple of songs from her catalog, confidently strutting the stage while the wind machine blew through her hair like a shampoo commercial. Afterward was a set by RIOTUSA, Ice Spice’s producer who manned the stage as a DJ, getting the crowd warmed up with 2024 standards like Travis Scott’s “FEIN” and classics like Chief Keef’s “Faneto” and “Don’t Like.”

RIOT got the crowd warmed up for Cash Cobain, but for some reason, the house audio and screen were fixated on priming us for M. Night Shyamalan’s latest movie — and Tymo hair products. I’m sure plenty of Ice’s fans love a good horror movie and high-quality hair styling tools — but they’re probably not thinking about that after screaming “Mo Bamba” at the top of their lungs. It’s unclear if this is a new trend that the venue or Live Nation is exploring, but they should immediately scrap it. And if the commercials weren’t playing, Terminal 5’s house music consisted of underground rap songs that rang off significantly before Ice Spice’s 1/1/2000 birthdate. Who knew it was so hard to pick a Spotify “Women’s Rap” playlist (save an Ice Spice foe or two) and let it play in between sets?

It was up to Cash Cobain to rescue the crowd from their commercial break, and he mostly achieved that during a set that spanned his growing catalog of hits and production for other artists. Cash is one of the coolest artists in the game, boasting a signature sound replete with a dance that simulates a flowing ocean current. The young crowd ate it up during songs like “Rum Punch,” and “Dunk Contest” (which included a Marni cameo!) but it felt like at times there could’ve been a little more energy during his few solo songs. Cash is a production maestro who told me he’s already ideating what the stage set will look like for his headlining tour, but it may take a bit more experience onstage to perfect his presentation. 

After a 20ish minute intermission — and more unwanted reminders that Trap is in theaters — Ice Spice took to the stage, rapping “Popa” after a short video intro that played into the Y2K theme, with Windows 98-inspired imagery and a clip of a helicopter surging through a metropolis seemingly based off Manhattan. She towered onstage to raucous applause like one of the onscreen skyscrapers, stretching her end rhyme to match the Chief Keefesque elongation on the track.

As one of the hottest artists in the city, Ice Spice has cultivated a wide network of artist peers. One or two of them joining her onstage would’ve been special. But it felt like overkill to see intermissions from Sleepy Hallow and Sheff G, Fivio Foreign, Party Next Door, and A Boogie, who all did multiple songs. It was good to see her embrace the heroes of the local New York rap scene and show that she’s not a tapped-out industry creation on the outskirts. But in the heat of her moment, at her hometown show, there just wasn’t enough Ice Spice. 

Perhaps that’s by design. She’s been discerning about how much she’s offered the public since her ascent. She doesn’t reveal much about her personal life. Her songs haven’t veered far from her being the “baddest lil bitch on her block.” Her debut album weighed in at 10 songs and 19 minutes. These aren’t bad qualities, and with the way modern fan culture feverishly seeks string to pull at to unravel an artist’s frontage, maybe it’s to be expected. Born in the heyday of MTV’s TRL, Ice Spice leaves her fans clamoring for more in the way that classic pop stars have. Who knows what the setlist will look like in other cities without so many easy cameos, but her hometown show followed that trend of artful scantness. 

It would’ve been nice to see the Bronx MC talk about what being back in her hometown felt like. But besides the moments when the crowd went up for her twerking, she kept her set polished and svelte; it seemed like she was still learning her spots. And it wasn’t all on her. When she invited fans onstage for a twerking competition, the security didn’t bring them up until the end of the track she sought them to dance on. It seems like even after predicting the weather, they couldn’t plan the figurative pretty picnic. To her credit, the dynamic wasn’t a fatal flaw. She seemingly won the crowd back with every song she came back out to after a guest appearance. Her visual presentation was also impressive, with clips geared to specific songs: a graphic about “A Lie” during “Boy’s A Liar,” a view of a city block featuring a “Deli” during her 2023 hit, and an animation of a large ass shaking during other songs. 

But all the curation made me wonder how much better the set would have been if she invested that intentionality and energy into her stage performance. Ice Spice is having a moment that New York rap has rarely experienced in recent years. It would’ve been nice for younger members of the crowd to go home with memorable moments to tell younger family members in a decade or so when Ice is onto bigger venues than Terminal 5. But last night didn’t feel like the coronation she was worthy of  — maybe it was by design for the girl who’s carefully decreeing the laws of her kingdom.