Band: Nicki Minaj
Album: Pink Friday
Best song: “Moment for Life” and, more so, “Blazin'” are excellent.
Worst song: “I’m the Best” isn’t the best.
Let’s get this out of the way. Pink Friday isn’t much of a record. It has its ups and downs, certainly. But, for whatever reason, Nicki Minaj’s first proper release is a forgettable album.
Why does this matter? Because, in her limited career, I’ll put Minaj up against any rapper as the best going today. That’s the tragedy. Unlike her mentor, Lil Wayne, Minaj has no album upon which to hang her “best in the game” hat. Like Lil Wayne, many of her best work is done on mixtapes and guest spots, but nevertheless, she is as skilled as anyone, if not more.
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You know that stutter/rapid-fire rap thing that’s been around for quite a while? You know, the thing Busta Rhymes does (most recently, as it’s his thing) on that dopey Chris Brown song (later covered — and made safer — by a pretty white lady and her milquetoast husband). Yeah. That thing.
Nicki Minaj does that on “Blazin’,” (going through “I catch wreck on recreation, so I exceed all your expectations/because I got it in ‘em, I kill ‘em and then I skin ‘em/the contract is on but I am the addendum” in the span of about a second and a half) better than those jerks and idiots.
Few people would mistake Kanye West as a great rapper, but Minaj destroys him on “Blazin’.” Like, it’s not even close.
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Another example: Do you remember how, when writing about Tha Carter III and Lil Wayne’s abject destruction of every other all-star on the “Make It Rain” remix (Listen here)?
Well, Nicki Minaj does that. On several guest tracks. Her verse on “Hello, Good Morning” is not just distinctive for having a lady voice on a Diddy record, but also for smoking big fat Rick Ross, T.I. and Diddy. Now, sure, the counterargument is multifaceted.
- The song isn’t much. Rescuing it is easy. I cede this some. It’s a pretty stupid song. But, nevertheless, being the best thing on a bad song is worth something.
- Her company on the song blows. I also cede this, to a point. Yes, Diddy is a shitty rapper and Rick Ross is a one-trick pony, but TI doesn’t suck at all. Besting him is something.
But, moreover, that’s not the only song on which Minaj is the highlight. Like Lil Wayne’s appearance on the “Make it Rain” remix, DJ Khaled’s remix of his own “All I Do is Win” is an all-star game of rappers. T-Pain, Rick Ross, Busta Rhymes, Diddy, Fabolous, Jadakiss and Fat Joe all appear on the record, with decent bits from Fabolous and Jadakiss, and a wonderful Busta Rhymes bit. Nevertheless, Minaj goes through slight and broad metaphors in a barely 20-second verse.
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It’s no coincidence that I have a playlist in my Amazon cloud player (I highly recommend it, by the way) simply called “Nicki Minaj – featured.” It is, not shockingly, her best guest spots from her bit on Britney Spears’ “Til the World Ends” remix to her sublime verse on Gucci Mane’s “Sex in Crazy Places” reminds me of Ludacris’ “What’s your Fantasy?”
(It’s worth noting that “What’s Your Fantasy?” is my favorite song of its type.)
In fact, she goes toe-to-toe with Luda on “My Chick Bad” and sounds better, oddly. She’s syrupy-slow on Birdman’s “Y.U. Mad” and submissive and downright sensual on big fat Rick Ross’ “You The Boss.” Hell, she appears on nearly the best song on the Lonely Island’s pretty clever Turtleneck & Chain record (I prefer “Motherlover,” as far as LI songs go).
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Which brings up the confusion inherent in the lack of quality of Pink Friday. It doesn’t really add up. Nicki Minaj’s record should be outstanding. Hell, she can make a stupidass Sean Kingston record song decent, why can’t she do her own work well?
Her mixtapes don’t shed a particular light, either. Like Lil Wayne, her best overall work are mixtape songs — “Go Hard,” on 2009’s Beam Me Up, Scotty and her appearance, not surprisingly, on Lil Wayne’s “Sweet Dreams” on his No Ceilings tape — and there’s not much of a dispute about that. Its not a timing thing, either; her work on early 2010’s “My Chick Bad” is just as good as her more recent (as in, released this month) appearance on Drake’s “Make Me Proud” (pretty mediocre rock-y live version here). Not a huge surprise, but that song is the best on Drake’s latest record.
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Pink Friday does have some highlights. As mentioned, “Blazin'” is a quality song, as is “Fly,” complete with hook sung by Rihanna. “Roman’s Revenge” has great Minaj bits on it (the remix is better, as it subs in Lil Wayne for Eminem, who can go pound sand, for all I care).
“Roman’s Revenge” is the thing that makes Minaj so interesting. Roman, of course, is her “gay boy” alter ego (one of her many vocal alter egos), as she explains here with Chelsea Handler:
The song’s aggression is a subtly interesting thing. The song is hard, crazy and striking, all stereotypes that do not follow the usual gay stereotypes. “Roman” is a tough dude, following Minaj’s ultra-aggressive lyrics.
It’s her, general, dedication to gay rights that is kind of striking (she made an “It gets better”-type video and has pledged to want to “eradicate” homophobia). Yes, it’s more palalatble. Gay women are more acceptable to a mostly male rap audience, but nevertheless, Minaj stays, as she said in an Out magazine profile, outside of the gay/straight labels:
‘I don’t date women and I don’t have sex with women.’ Nicki Lewinsky laughs at the resemblance and adds almost tauntingly, ‘But I don’t date men either.’ Her bottom line: No labels. ‘People who like me — they’ll listen to my music, and they’ll know who I am. I just don’t like that people want you to say what you are, who you are. I just am. I do what the fuck I want to do.’
Minaj’s great strength is her fullness, of course. And part of that is the sexuality that is so part of her image.
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Which brings us to, of course, an elephant in the room.
I’ll put it in some context. Having a conversation with someone recently about Karmin and their minor fame, my companion noted that Karmin’s popularity remains in “a safe, pretty, very made-up girl rapping.” And, no doubt, there’s something to this. Watch the video.
Which brings us back to Nicki Minaj and the fact that she’s a good-looking woman. That’s not without its value, of course; much of the rap game is image and Minaj’s image is striking. I don’t doubt that a lot of her popularity is that she’s pretty and talented.
For what it’s worth, I’m OK with this. It’s 2011 — externalities are in play. Drake’s former life on on Degrassi get people in the door, no question. It’s part of the reason people want to hear if he’s any good. And there are, for some reason, people who find him to be physically attractive. I find him dumpy, personally.
But, I digress.
If image didn’t matter, as Patton Oswalt would possibly say, we’d all wear sweatpants. It’s not that easy. Nicki Minaj’s multiple personalities in her rap persona are part of her image construction, with the Barbie thing being the operative one, which makes her similar to a lot of dude rappers.
Again. That’s of value and it’s certainly better than the alternative. As she told Out in its profile:
“It’s interesting that people have more negative things to say about me saying ‘I’m Barbie’ than me saying ‘I’m a bad bitch,’ ‘ she says, getting a bit heated. ‘So you can call yourself a female dog because that’s cool in our community. But if you call yourself a Barbie, that’s fake.”
Indeed, it’s Minaj’s realness that spans all her alter egos. She spans the aggressively violent Roman to the intern-inspired Nicki Lewinsky to the ultra-Katy Perry-esque Barbie. There’s a fullness there that goes beyond the normal
And that flow. There’s also her superior ability to make nearly every other rapper look silly.
