Okay, let’s get this straight. Nicki Minaj is not just famous because she is a female rapper, or because she was the first female rapper to really take the industry by storm. She is also not just famous because of her often outrageous fashion sense, and the obvious sex appeal this promotes. It is a discredit to suggest that these alone have propelled her to stardom - they would have made her a flash in the pan. What has ensured her longevity is her undoubted skill as an artist. She can go bar to bar with just about anyone else in the game, she has hooks that wriggle themselves into your head and don’t remove themselves in a hurry, and she has undoubted charisma. Also, in my opinion, her verse on Kanye’s ‘Monster’ is the best rap verse of the modern era, if not of all time. Sue me. But she also has a much greater social role to play, and one which, judging from her recent Beats 1 interview with Zane Lowe, she is very aware of. “There are songs on the album that I feel woman really need right now,” with a message of female empowerment even more relevant amidst the rise of conservatism that has paralleled the ascent of President Trump. Perhaps the pivotal track is the one that has stirred up the most controversy, ‘Barbie Dreams’, on which Nicki hilariously lists all the rappers that want to sleep with her and why she always refuses their advances. The song ironically inverts a sample from Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Just Playing (Dreams)’, which consists of him going through all the female R&B singers he’s attracted to. Nicki toys with Drake before dismissing him for being too emotional, claims the monocular Fetty Was has his eye (get it?) on her, and calls out her ex Meek Mill for still pervading her DMs. She is tempted by Young Thug, who famously broke gender stereotypes by wearing women’s clothes on the cover of his 2017 project JEFFERY, but then jokingly raps that she was turned off when she found him stealing her dresses. This song epitomises what we need more of in 2018 - a woman’s voice in Hip Hop, and good, light-hearted fun. Many were shocked by ‘Barbie Dreams’, thinking it to be a diss track directed towards the various rappers referenced. But this is symptomatic of the problem - artists with their constant introspection and profound musings can end up taking themselves too seriously (rather like I do as a philosophy student, mind you), and here Nicki provides some refreshing relief from this. For too long in the past women who like Hip Hop have had to endure the constant belittling, objectifying and macho domineering that underlies most of the songs atop the genre, which sound as though they are exclusively directed towards a male audience, even if this is not the intention. Nicki Minaj is a role model, someone who embodies the confidence, fearlessness and self-belief that regular Hip Hop can often detract from. On her new album, Queen, she fires innumerable warning shots at her ex, but it comes across as strong rather than bitter, resurgent rather than regretful. The focus is very much on her, and her life, not on those who haven’t been able to keep up with her. And she has fun doing it, with the project peppered with entertaining, tongue-in-cheek punchlines, whilst never losing sight of the album’s defiant cri-de-coeur - "Who the f*** you thought you was, tryna stunt on Nick?” In the strategic chess-board of Hip Hop, the likes of Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West still frantically vie for the throne, but too long have the eyes been trained on the King. For everyone knows the Queen is the most important player. Yours sincerely, but not too seriously, Max.i’m
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AuthorHello! I'm currently studying Philosophy & Theology at Oxford University, UK. Having always loved writing and music in equal measure, and having always hated decision-making, I figured hey, why do I need to choose between the two? Archives
May 2020
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