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Steve Madden

Steve Madden: 'Lover's quarrel' with Azalea

Andrea Mandell, and Maria Puente
USAToday
Iggy Azalea wasn't pleased with promotional images released by Steve Madden on Thursday.

Is the upcoming collaboration between footwear giant Steve Madden and rapper Iggy Azalea doomed?

At the very least, their big reveal is off to a rocky start.

In August, Azalea and Madden announced an upcoming capsule collection of shoes, due in February. She even previewed her favorite platform design on her Instagram three months ago.

"When I first came to America I thought the Steve Madden brand was the pinnacle of high fashion, because the shoes were $200," the Australian rapper told Vanity Fair in January. "And I thought, 'Who the (expletive) has $200 to buy shoes?'

But on Thursday, Madden released images from what Azalea says was an unapproved photo shoot via Tumblr, and the feud-friendly rapper quickly took to Twitter to vent, calling herself "livid."

"Everything in a collaboration is supposed to be mutually approved. But Steve madden did the most disgusting photo shoot ever and never Even told me about it, I'm just now seeing it as its uploaded on some random tumblr page and iam livid," she tweeted Thursday in a series of tweets, captured on the website The Fader.

Steve Madden quickly password-protected the Tumblr page. Azalea later deleted the tweets.

"This was a lover's quarrel," the company tells USA TODAY in a statement. "We love Iggy and are very excited about our collaboration. When you get two artists working together sometimes there are fireworks. It's our creative differences that allow us to design an incredible collection and we are looking forward to sharing it with the world!"

Her brewing feud with Madden adds to the list of social-media conflicts Azalea has been involved in, especially with black American singers and rappers, such as Nicki Minaj, Azealia Banks, Eve and Jill Scott.

In the latest crossfire, Banks, Eve and Scott have taken Azalea — a white Aussie whose real name is Amethyst Amelia Kelly — to task for allegedly ripping off African-American music, culture, even accent, for profit.

Azalea responded Thursday to the latest criticism on Twitter:

Banks was especially emotional in a radio interview last month, when she referred to Azalea's "cultural smudging," broke into tears and suggested that Azalea is part of white society's attempts to tell African Americans that they don't own anything, not even their music.

This week, Eve and Scott discussed Azalea in an interview, with Scott suggesting that the Australian's voice "sounds like a big bite to me. The blaccent."

Azalea responded with similar passion:

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