A Deeper Context: Nicki Minaj Works in the Electronic-Pop Era

Nicki Minaj. I will admit that I’ve always had the tendency to hate pure rap music. I just can’t stand the idea of listening to music where someone just speaks really quickly with no melody, but of course the classic hip-hop records with the damn catchy chorus usually sung by female singers I could buy into (P.Diddy’s I’ll Be Missing You featuring Faith Evans is one my fav). But you know the pure rap lyrics about having “fuck festivals all day all night in countless position and fighting in the projects like tough thugs” aren’t my forte. Maybe I don’t live that type of lifestyle that’s why (I grew up having my parents working in the hotel industry and providing me a damn materialistically fortunate childhood). Then came along Miss. Minaj and everything changed. This woman is saving hip-hop period. She has the ability for me to sit and listen to her whole debut album Pink Friday including the controversial track, Roman’s Revenge featuring Eminem, and just get musically fucking high. People may argue that Roman’s Revenge is a very hard-hitting pure rap track, which yes it is, but it’s Minaj genius of having many outer-egos (die for Martha), which gives her music the entertaining factor.

Roman's Revenge by FlyTy19
What’s also clever about Miss. Nicki is that she’s embracing the current music trend that many old-school rappers are failing to commit (except Jay-Z and Eminem). Nicki is also using pop-electronic beats as the basis of her songs while still fully rapping on her songs which then of course Top 40 radios will find more acceptable. Also, there’s this conspiracy theory in the early 00’s when hip-hop was dominating the charts that pop was shit. But now when pop is back, hip-hop is seen as shit. However, Nicki is merging the two genres together and creating groundbreaking records. It’s exactly the same thing Missy Elliot was able to do during those supreme years of hers and having this crossover appeal. This crossover appeal phenomena also works well for Nicki because she’s taping into new fan bases by being featured on tracks of other artists such as Rihanna who is probably the Queen of Top 40 radio right now. There’s also no denial that Minaj’s popularity has intensified because she’s playing the Gaga cards in trying to be always talked about with her image and create this personality, but like Gaga, they both have the talent to back-up and not taken as a phony. Plus, many rappers (Lil fucking lame Kim especially) is trying to whore for attention and get a few headlines by attacking Nicki, but when an artist is featured on a Kanye West track with Jay-Z and Eminem decides to collaborate on their debut album (also being a female), it tells something special about her. If she does win Best New Artist  in 2012 at the Grammys (she will get nominated 100%) then she’s Queen and Lil’ Kim+ Missy (I do love Elliot very much) can dig their graves.