Iggy Azalea explains album delay: ‘My personal life kind of fell apart’

Iggy Azalea has explained why her second album will now not be coming out in 2016, saying: “I kind of had my personal life fall apart.”

The rapper dropped lead single ‘Team’ in March and the album, her follow-up to 2014’s debut ‘The New Classic’, had been due to follow later in the year. However, in a new interview the rapper confirmed that ‘Digital Distortion’ is now set for a January 2017 release.

“I needed a lot of time,” she told PEOPLE on Thursday night (September 29). “I mean, you wake up one morning and your fiancé is having a baby with someone else, you’re going to need some time, right?”

Azalea announced her engagement to LA Lakers basketball player Nick Young in June 2015, but a year later it was confirmed that the couple had parted ways. It has since been publicly revealed that Young is about to father his second child with a woman he dated before becoming engaged to Azalea. “It’s no secret, I kind of had my personal life fall apart,” the rapper said candidly.

Explaining how events in her personal life have affected the album’s direction, Azalea added: “I just kind of felt like, on top of me needing the personal time, [I was] then feeling, ‘Okay, I’m single now. I want to have sexy songs. I want to say stuff about being single.’ I obviously didn’t write that on my [original] album because when I wrote it I was about to get married.”