Nicki Minaj: Redefining Female Rap Music

Out Magazine Shoot

      Until this past year female rap had basically died out and became non-existent. Former MCs who had once dominated the game such as Lil’ Kim, Trina, and Eve had progressively become less and less relevant and people began to lose hope in the ability of female rap to be recognized in the mainstream. In 2005 the Grammy’s removed the category for Best Female Rap Performance due to the small pool of nominees to choose from.

         In 2010 New York native Nicki Minaj single handedly put female rap music back into the mainstream. Her catchy lyrics, unique style, and distinct personality have enabled her to capture the attention of Millions. MTV named her the 6^th hottest MC in the game for the year of 2010 before she had even released an album. Her debut album, “Pink Friday” has recently been certified platinum by the RIAA in only six weeks of its release. She has been featured on a plethora of tracks from notable artists ranging from Mariah Carey to Kanye West. Her followers on the social network twitter exceed 2 million, and she constantly appears on popular celebrity blogging sites. Many people scratch their head when pondering how Nicki Minaj has been able to become so relevant at a time where female rap was thought to be such an irrelevant matter. The to understand the answer to these questions one must closely examine Nicki’s collection of work and rise to fame.

          The transition of Nicki Minaj’s music from her early mixtapes to “Pink Friday” is essential to understanding how she was successfully able to redefine female rap music. Throughout history in society the minority is always forced to conform to the customs of the majority in order to be acknowledged and seen as important in society. For example, cut a women’s hair and put her in a pantsuit and she becomes seen as powerful and threatening; give a black man a decent job and education and he may be escape the hood that he was raised in and be able to live a calm suburban life. In terms of the rap industry, female MCs must mimic the style and flow of male rappers and exhibit that they can be just as “hard” or “tough” as their male counter parts, and since the dawn of artist like Lil’ Kim and Trina female MCs have always been expected to have a certain level of sex appeal. Nicki Minaj used this truth in order to raise eyebrows with her first two mixtapes Playtime is Over and Sucka free. Minaj appeared on Lil Wayne’s edition of The Come Up DVD series through this people were able to get a feel for who she was as an artist and the tough but sexy image she used to brand herself. Her voice was strong and demanding and her flow and delivery as threatening as the beat to whichever song she was on. This caught the attention of rap artist Lil Wayne. Minaj’s feature in the come up highlights who she was as a up and coming artist and the image that she felt she had to give in order to be respected and acknowledged.

Sucka Free Poster

Minaj had a promotional poster for Sucka Free that featured her with her legs spread open licking on a lollipop. The sexually explicit poster coupled with her street lyrics and harsh flow featured on both mixtapes was enough to get people in the rap industry to notice her. She spit on top of beats by the late great Biggie Smalls, other female rappers, and popular hip-hop songs.  Using familiar beats helped to make listeners feel comfortable when listening to her music, not only that she was able to come after established artists and create favorable music with their beats. She rapped about drugs, violence, sex, and money in many of her initial tracks because she knew that it was mandatory for her to gain any type of recognition within the industry and it was what consumers wanted to hear. In addition to this, Minaj used her first two mixtapes to sell herself as an artist and exhibit why she was the best when compared to others like her, which is exactly what any aspiring artist should do. Her voice on most of her tracks was really deep and desensitized, some of her lyrics included “slap bitches with the back of the pump”, “Damn Imma have to send her to her maker”, and “Bitch get at me imma pay my henchmen.” Her lyrics included a sense of homophobia and masculinity like that of many male rappers. Tracks such as Click-Clack, Warning, Dead Wrong, and 40 bars exude a hard New-York style, while tracks such as Sticks In My Bun and Dreams give a sexier side of Minaj that clarifies Nicki’s is in attunement with her sexuality, a trait essential to any modern female MC. Some of the most valuable pieces of her early mixtapes are tracks like Wuchoo Know, Playtime Is Over, and Jump Off 07 as they strongly display her smooth flow and demonstrate that she has the ability to write sensible puns, similes and metaphors. With Playtime is Over and Sucka Free Minaj victoriously gained the attention of the rap community, however her style and appearance really didn’t distinguish her from other female artists that had already done what she was attempting to do. While it was necessary for her to come hard with her lyrics and advertise herself as a sex symbol it wasn’t enough to really break her into the mainstream because that was the image of female rap that caused its death. With the help of Lil Wayne she created her next mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty and started her process of redefining her image and what we knew to be female rap.

Beam Me Up Scotty cover

          Beam Me Up Scotty was completely a 360 from Nicki Minaj’s first two mixtapes. The mixtape features her both singing and rapping on tracks and signifies the birth of her Barbie image and her use of multiple voices/personalities. Beam Me Up Scotty allowed Nicki Minaj to separate her self from female rappers who all had similar styles and voices. There had been animated MCs such as Missy Elliot, sex-centralized rappers such as Trina and Lil Kim, hardcore rappers like foxy brown and Eve.  What made Minaj special was that she embodied all of these traits into one persona. On her tracks Itty-Bitty Piggy, Go Hard, and Envy Minaj displays her ability to effortlessly switch up her flow and successfully gets away with screaming and yelling on her tracks. Her voice in I Get Crazy ranges from soft and sweet to hard and wacky with her off the wall lyrics mimicking this style.  In the song Beam Me Up Scotty she uses a Caribbean accent while rapping to compliment the reggae beat and on the mixtape’s outro she talks with a decent British accent giving thanks to Lil’ Wayne. While she presents a great amount of range in Beam Me Up Scotty Nicki doesn’t completely abandon the style she rapped with on her first two mixtapes. On Get Silly and Baddest Bitch she revives the Sucka Free/Playtime is Over Nicki. She shows off her vocal skills with the sentimental tracks Still I Rise and Can Anybody Hear Me. Beam Me Up Scotty is what really put Nicki on the map. The amount of diversity she displays on the tape is unprecedented when compared to that of any rapper, male or female.

          Female rappers have been known to come out behind the support of established male rappers. Popular pairs include Lil Kim and Biggie, Trina and Trick Daddy, Shawna and Ludacris. Nicki was signed to Young Money Entertainment and was primarily brought to the forefront by Lil’ Wayne. What is important to understand about this situation however is how Nicki was able to hold her own and dominate with Wayne being in prison. During the entire year of 2010 Nicki Minaj was the name on everyone’s lips and she was able to accomplish this simply through features. Minaj branded herself, strongly sold her image, and did things to catch the public attention. Calling herself a “Barbie” and wearing pink hair that went down the sides of her ridiculously curvatious body all went into selling her image. As with her musical style and lyrics, Nicki Minaj does not constrain her image and that is what made her stand out within her features. In the video for My Chick Bad by Ludacris, not only does Minaj rap about iconic horror villains but she appears tied in a straight jacket donning a pink wig, jet black lips, and a Freddy Krueger glove. Not only were the lyrics unusual for rappers period, Minaj’s look was so outlandish that it commanded the public’s entire interest. Minaj was able to attract attention and buzz without appearing in revealing outfits with hair and make up that is appealing.  In looking at features,

My Chick Bad 

My Chick Bad was simply the start of features that would help shape Minaj’s image in 2010. She appeared on Usher’s Lil’ Freak with two toned Cruella Deville hair rapping out Santa’s reindeer, Dirty Money’s Hello Good Morning with a curly blue lace front, and Trey Song’s Bottom’s Up screaming as if she had Tourette’s and paying homage to the late Anna Nicole smith. While her temperament changes from feature to feature she still remains true to her individual style and aesthetic. Minaj uses her lyrics and voice to enforce female empowerment and break away from the stigma associated with female rappers by focusing her lyrics on the themes of the songs and using unconventional puns, metaphors, and similies instead of themes associated with sex, money, and violence. Nicki Minaj's consistency made her the face of female hip-hop for 2010, a face that gave life to an absolutely dead institution.  She became personal with her fans by making live appearances on U-stream, she created her own personal dictionary and called it the “Nicktionary”, and she began signing breasts at public appearances. It is speculated that Nicki Minaj’s makeup is gimmicky and not true to her character as a person, suggesting that all of the outlandish things she does are simply cries for attention. If this assertion is true then Nicki Minaj is laughing all the way to the bank. In her most notorious feature on Kanye West’s Monster she states “And if I’m fake, I ain’t notice cause my money ain’t” addressing all of those who speculated her authenticity. With Monster Minaj gained the respected of anyone who had ever doubted her as a rap artist. Many agree that she had the best verse on the track and it is unanimously agreed that her verse was phenomenal. On the track she effortlessly switches throughout all three of her personalities Barbie, Nicki and Roman in order to give listeners a feel of who she is and how she has succeeded in her quest to make an impact within the rap game. She points out all of her features that she is criticized about and makes the point of how obsolete these criticisms are when compared to her success, describing her self as a monster.  Nicki Minaj’s triumphant rise in 2010 paved the way for the success of her debut album Pink Friday.

Pink Friday Cover

          Pink Friday, Minaj’s debut album is the final key to understanding how she has changed the definition of female rap. The cover of the album is entirely pink and features Minaj sitting with no arms and elongated legs, appearing almost doll-like. Her dramatic pink dress that she wears on the cover is not at all revealing and her expression isn’t sexually enticing but almost comical and weird. Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday cover is not what traditionally thought of as Rap, especially Female Rap whose covers feature half naked women in sexually suggestive positions. Pink Friday’s cover could be more closely related to that of a pop album. Marketing is a key factor within looking at the cover; it is pleasant and has a strong sense of juvenilism. The most predominant buyers of music today are female teenagers; Nicki’s cover appeals to the eye of these consumers while staying true to her “Barbie” image. The “pop” cover is an interesting aspect because many believe that the album’s genre to actually be pop. This belief is almost laughable. Beats do not make the music genre nor do the lyrics, it is the way that the two are combines that serves to create the genre. While tracks like Check It Out, Roman’s Revenge, and Your Love have beats that may not conventionally sound like rap or hip-hop, Nicki Minaj is able to take these beats and make them believable additions to the hip-hop genre with her lyrics and rhetoric. Above any of the tracks Check It Out comes off as extremely poppy, Minaj challenges this beat with her popular verse at the end, which clearly embodies all qualities of Rap. Roman’s Revenge, probably the albums most celebrated track, features a beat that is computerized and futuristic but Minaj’s rough, unsympathetic tone when rhyming on the track paired with rap icon Eminem’s notorious Slim Shady character makes Roman’s Revenge a strong rap track. Pink Friday, like Beam Me Up Scotty, demonstrates Nicki Minaj’s array of versatility. She has songs that are inspirational and empowering (Last Chance, I’m the Best, Fly, Blazin’, Moment 4 Life, Girls Fall Like Dominoes), songs about love and relationships (Right Through Me, Your Love), Songs that demonstrate a hard rap style (Did it on ‘em, Roman’s Revenge), and songs that are personal and sentimental (Here I am, Dear Old Nicki, Save Me). She downplays the negativity found in hip-hop music and replaces it with themes of fashion, capitalization, and feminism. She was able to blend pieces of pop, hip-hop, rap, r&b, and make it work. Pink Friday let it be known that Nicki Minaj is the most dominant face of female MCs and is the premiere album in a new age of female rap music.

Ebony Photoshoot

Think of Nicki Minaj as a cell phone. If a person wanted to buy a cell phone they could purchase a phone that only could be used for calling and texting and be just fine with communication. However, in modern times a phone that can only simply call and text is not seen as much of a phone. People desire phones that not only can call and text but serve as an MP3 player or GPS system, connect them to their favorite social networks, allow them to check their e-mail and favorite websites, and even chat visually instead of vocally. The success of the iPhone and Blackberry can be attributed to their undisputable amount of versatility. Technology has redefined what we thought of as a phone just as Nicki Minaj has done with female rap. She is not just limited to “calling and texting” and has a wide variety of features. Through this variety she was able to distinguish her self from all the other basic phones and give rebirth and recognition to what we know as female rap.