Minaj's album is not bad, and decidedly not boring, but it's a microcosm for Minaj's work as a whole. The first single, "Your Love," is a straight-ahead sweet love song. It samples Annie Lennox's "No More I Love You's" and doesn't get its hands any dirtier than name-checkingGhostface. The verses show her love for playing with sounds and voices, but wouldn't appeal to many who came looking for another "Monster" verse.
"Check It Out," the second single, has some clinically devastating Minaj raps, but it also features a cheesy Buggles sample and will.i.am. "Right Thru Me" is another lovestruck single with much more heart than attitude.
Then again, it’s probably misguided to expect an album called Pink Friday to be an altogether gritty, throat-stomping rap album.
With her self-conscious Barbie posturing on the album cover and across several songs, Minaj has shown an abiding fascination with the way women are plasticized, manipulated, and collected. The way Minaj controls the absolute tone and timbre of her voice is another iteration of this concern. Yet Barbie is also empowering, showing people that there’s a value and desirability to being girly.
As suggested above, Pink Friday often is a pretty girly album. For it to be composed only of the hyper-violent or the hyper-sexual would put it squarely in the provenance of male-dominated market pressures.
With her self-conscious Barbie posturing on the album cover and across several songs, Minaj has shown an abiding fascination with the way women are plasticized, manipulated, and collected. The way Minaj controls the absolute tone and timbre of her voice is another iteration of this concern. Yet Barbie is also empowering, showing people that there’s a value and desirability to being girly.
As suggested above, Pink Friday often is a pretty girly album. For it to be composed only of the hyper-violent or the hyper-sexual would put it squarely in the provenance of male-dominated market pressures.
There’s an interesting moment on "Roman's Revenge," a track with Eminem. In a way, the song is as close to an archetypal Minaj song as it comes. It flies at you fast and unhinged. Its sparse beat provides an open lane for Minaj's splintered personalities to clatter down. During Eminem's verse he says, "it’s Shady and Nicki Minaj. / You might find the sight quite odd," but it doesn't seem odd at all. Minaj clearly draws inspiration from Eminem—the impossibly fast verbal motor, stop-start verbal flourishes, and a polyphonous, schismatic narrative style are all hallmarks of each rapper.
It’s not surprising, then, that Minaj frequently uses this aggressive style of rap when she’s sharing a track with the big-time rappers. It’s also not surprising that it’s featured on one of the Pink Fridaysongs that is explicitly about double personas. It’s as if Minaj tries to distance herself from the technique even as she uses it with relish.
Nicki Minaj finds herself poised on the cusp of a real breakthrough. The last generation of women rappers has started to fade away, and very few female MCs have taken over the reins. Nicki Minaj isn’t even limited to laying down a great verse; she can sing the hook to a song, too. With her polyphonous, multi-style approach to record making, she can literally do it all. Her very presence is destabilizing on the male-dominated rap landscape. Where the guys are all playing dress-up in suit and tie, Minaj’s Barbie style is reshaping the game right around them.
Nicki Minaj finds herself poised on the cusp of a real breakthrough. The last generation of women rappers has started to fade away, and very few female MCs have taken over the reins. Nicki Minaj isn’t even limited to laying down a great verse; she can sing the hook to a song, too. With her polyphonous, multi-style approach to record making, she can literally do it all. Her very presence is destabilizing on the male-dominated rap landscape. Where the guys are all playing dress-up in suit and tie, Minaj’s Barbie style is reshaping the game right around them.
© 2011 NICKI MINAJ. ALL
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