Upon listening, the first thing I notice was her confidence. She honestly believes she is the best which is a typical asset of most rappers. Even if you don't have everything you are bragging about in the song, it gets the listener's attention . Combine that with well known beats, familiar samples, and you get the gist. I really set out listening to this thinking that maybe there is something about this girl I'm missing. Is there more to her than this hyper-sexualized, random persona? Maybe there is more potential than her top singles indicate.
Ladies and gentleman the answer is.............no Now let's get down to business since my theory seems to be confirmed. Back in 2008, while randomly navigating Worldstarhiphop (that site is addictive), I happened to find Nicki Minaj. Upon watching the video, I dismissed her as another Lil' Kim/Foxy Brown clone using that road paved by both MCs to make a name for herself. Good for her. Nothing wrong with that. Two years later we have the finished project.... yes, project. The reason that the Nicki Minaj we see bears no resemblance to the Nicki of two years ago is thanks to Lil Wayne. I strongly believe that Wayne modeled her after himself in order to sell records and to do that, you need two things: a great marketing plan and a mysterious persona that makes you so weird that no one can classify you. And it has been a complete success.
Nicki Minaj is getting attention because she has marketed herself as an artist who can not be labeled. Which is fancy way of saying, due to the fact that she is not confident that she can deliver a hot 16 on every record, she sings (autotune) a song here and there. Some of you might say, "Well, she's just trying to transcend hip hop and become an artist that has cross over appeal". To that I say, you can't transcend to the next phase til you conquer the first. I don't even think she knows who she is hence, the new personalities every other week and the bisexual undertones. Though I haven't been able to get a straight bio from anywhere online, the little that I did find points to a girl in Queens who made up personalities to deal with an abusive father and an unstable home.
But I can't blame it all on her. What female rapper wasn't influenced by Kim and Foxy? They were some of the best to do it. I just don't think you can claim the throne if there is no one there to contest you. No one there to force you to raise the bar. I read on sohh.com last week that she is afraid of what she might sell the first week. The reason is, she doubts that she will be able to top her own hype. A problem that Drake faced not to long ago ( less than 500,000 units the first week with that buzz?). Like it or not, we made Nicki Minaj by buying records from rappers with mediocre talent. So the mega-conglomerate, record companies think that this is what we want. Nicki Minaj's true potential ( if there is any) remains to be seen. I know she will move lots of units when the album drops, but I don't see where she goes from here. Who knows? Maybe this will set the tone for one of the many underground female MCs to move to the forefront.
Maybe
Maybe we will all have no choice but to hear, "It's Barbie Bitch" for the next couple years.
What are your thoughts? Am I looking at this all wrong? Should I be happy that there is a female MC that is able to build buzz equal to that of her male counterparts once again?
Talk amongst yourselves...I'm listening
I totally agree. I think Nicki is smart to use her gimmicks to get her attention but, lyrically, umm....I don't know. I still believe that the best female MCs could really spit and hold their own - e.g. MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Lil Kim (especially during the Jr. Mafia and Biggie days), Foxy, Eve, etc.
ReplyDeleteAll of them were different but shared one thing in common - they had skill, which was proven countless times. They all created their own persona and did not lean on another MC for inspiration.
To me, Nicki represents much of what we're seeing in current hip-hop - lots of hype that out-shadows the skill, itself. So, in my opinion, she's good with marketing her brand; however, I am still waiting to get hype about her skill . . .