Why am I obsessed with Nicki Minaj?

(For all of the squares reading my blog oblivious to pop culture who do not know who Nicki Minaj is, I will give a brief summary of Nicki, highlighting the aspects that are most important to me.)

Nicki Minaj is a rapper, (fe)MC, singer, pop-culture icon.  She refers to herself as “Nicki Minaj aka Nicki the Ninja aka rap bitches step your game up”.  Additional personas that she often takes on, male and female, straight and bent, include Nicki Lewinsky (in reference to Monica Lewinsky), Harajuku Barbie, Martha, and Roman.  She is the first female rapper to hit #1 on the billboard charts.  She raps about gender identity, working hard, getting money, being the best, being weird (“I Get Crazy”), and whatever else she wants.  She is part of the Young Money record label headed by Lil Wayne.

She somehow manages to bring issues that are typically not rapped about in mainstream music and turn them into top billboard hits.  One of the biggest gripes I have with Hip-Hop feminism writings is that much writing tends to either focus on how mainstream hardcore rap exploits women or about how indie-rap women are really awesome.  While both of these topics interest me, I keep asking, “Where are the women participating in hardcore rap and what do they have to say about this?”  I think understanding Nicki Minaj is so pertinent exactly because of how commercially successful she has been in mainstream rap culture.  Can there be a Hip-Hop Post-Feminism and is Nicki it, or is it too soon?  Elaboration on this to follow in future posts.

Why does she continue to fascinate me?

I don’t know.  I should start by saying that I don’t agree with the things she says or does all of the time.  For example, sometimes I can’t decide if she is owning her sexuality or exploiting it.  I am also interested in the ways she is being perceived, criticized, written about, and not written about.  She is rapping like the boys and receiving so much criticism for it.  I can’t think of any male rapper who has had every move they make analyzed and covered in the press to the extent that Nicki has, coming both from within and outside the rap community.  Conversely, while what Nicki is doing reflects some very significant shifts in popular culture relevant to Queer Theory, Post- Feminism, Hip-Hop Feminism, and spectacle, to name a few, scholarly analysis or critical writings are absent.  Lady Gaga, a peer to Minaj in many ways, has, on the other hand, received copious amount of attention and critical writings from the academic community.  Why is this?

These are just a few of the over-arching lens through which I am trying to understand Nicki Minaj, my relationship to her, and what it all means. She is very complicated.  It is a big undertaking, deserving of multiple, more focused posts.  This is my introduction.

Links

my favorite songs by Nicki:

Roman’s Revenge

I Get Crazy

her verse on Kanye West’s “Monster”

Massive Attack

Here are some great links discussing the social issues and significance of Minaj much more elequently than I attempted to do here:

“Tuning In: Nicki Minaj” from Bitch Magazine

“Who’s that Girl” from Slate Magazine

NICKI MINAJ AND FEMINIST CONTRADICTIONS IN HARDCORE FEMALE RAP

Post-Feminist/Consumerist Theory in Action: Nicki Minaj, Will.I.Am, and Valerie Solanas

Awesome title, right?  I came across a mash-up of the lyrics of the song “Check it Out” by Nicki Minaj and Will.I.Am combined with Valerie Solanas’ “S.C.U.M. Manifestio”, a piece of post-feminist literature from 1968.  The mash-up is written by Raymond Cummings and can be viewed here. For my purposes, I will also post the article below:

Post-Feminist/Consumerist Theory in Action: Nicki Minaj, Will.I.Am, and Valerie Solanas by Raymond Cummings

The Harajuku Barbie’s “Check It Out” vs. The S.C.U.M. Mainfesto.

Longtime frenemies Nicki Minaj and Valerie Solanas are shopping for sunglasses at a Yves St Laurant outlet store; Will.I.Am, a nosy assistant manager, is tripping his nuts off. The store’s PA system is playing elevator music so subtle and soft that it barely exists.

Minaj (checking her manicure): I’m getting money in abundance!

Valerie Solanas (gently slipping on a pair of 2297/S frames): There is no human reason for money or for anyone to work more than two or three hours a week at the very most.

Nicki Minaj (caressing huge roll of hundreds): Man, I can’t even count all of these hundreds! Duffle bag every time I go to SunTrust.

Solanas (checking her make-up in a complementary mirror): Obviously this will not do.

Minaj (fed up): Get up off my collar!

Solanas: (fuming) In short, contempt is the order of the day.

Minaj: You a chihuahua. I’m a rottweiler. Money in the bank, we be getting’ top dollar.

Solanas (hands on hips, narrowing eyes): SCUM will keep on destroying, looting, fucking-up and killing until the money-work system no longer exists and automation is completely instituted or until enough women co-operate with SCUM to make violence unnecessary to achieve these goals, that is, until enough women either unwork or quit work, start looting, leave men and refuse to obey all laws inappropriate to a truly civilized society.

Minaj (sticking out her tongue): I don’t sympathize, cause you a simple bitch; I just pop up on these hoes, on some pimple shit.

Will.I.Am. (winking at Solanas, looking her over, chattering into a portable Autotune filter): This club is heating, this party’s blazing. I can’t believe it, this beat is banging! I’m feeling it noooo-ow!

Solanas (staring daggers at Will): To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he’s a machine, a walking dildo. It’s often said that men use women. Use them for what? Surely not pleasure.

Will (faltering, backpedaling, stuttering): Check it out. Check it out? Check it out! Check it out…

Minaj (turning on Will): Fuck my nemesis?

Solanas (cackling maniacally): Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears, and insecurities and obtaining, if he’s lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he’ll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there’ll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He’ll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and furthermore, pay for the opportunity. Why?

Minaj (giving Will a small shove): I’m a big baller, you a little smaller; step up to my level, you need to grow a little taller!

Solanas (stepping forward, balling her hand into a claw): In actual fact, the female function is to explore, discover, invent, solve problems, crack jokes, make music — all with love. In other words, create a magic world.

Will (has soiled his M.C. Hammer parachute pants): I can’t believe it!

Panicked, Will flees, vanishing into the store‘s stockroom. Minaj and Solanas watch him go, then return to their browsing.

Minaj (rolling eyes, executing a genuine In Living Color ‘round-the-world‘ snap): Just for emphasis.

Solanas (shaking her head): Life in a society made by and for creatures who, when they are not grim and depressing are utter bores, can only be, when not grim and depressing, an utter bore.

The women take their leave, decamping for Victoria’s Secret.

Minaj (looking back wistfully): I ain’t coming back, this time.

Solanas (retrieving a Blackberry from her Prada handbag): Rational men want to be squashed, stepped on, crushed and crunched, treated as the curs, the filth that they are, have their repulsiveness confirmed.

Minaj (nodding slowly, bares teeth at oblivious fashionistas, whispers): Haters, you can kill yourself. I’m a fucking savage. Dun-dun.

Solanas (grinning broadly, twirling a lock of hair around a finger, blowing butterfly kisses to a passing George Clooney look-alike): The blueprints for it are already in existence, and its construction will take only a few weeks with millions of people working on it.

end scene.

This mash-up brings to light many of pertinent topics that circle around my thinking about  Minaj.  I will give some background on Solanas first (of which I am by no means an expert).  Solanas was a radical feminist figure in the 1960′s and 70′s.  She wrote a play called Up Your Ass, which Andy Warhol was possibly going to publish.  After disputes with Warhol, Solanas shot him. After that she wrote SCUM Manifesto, SCUM debatably an acronym for “Society for Cutting Up Men”.  The manifesto calls for a male genocide and the creation of an all female society.

I love how this scene ends, with Solanas and Minaj on the street, disguised as flirty, hot chicks, hiding evil take-over plans behind their sweet grins.   It seems as though Solanas is a controversial figure who is perceived in many different ways.  Some say she was crazy and unstable.  Some respect her writings and continue to advocate for them.  Some say it was all satire.  Some believe she really meant it to be realized. One article I read said she did whatever she could to get attention.  I start to think about how all of this could apply to Minaj.

More generally, Minaj makes me think about what it means to live in a post-feminist society, or what a post-feminist society even is.  Is she owning her sexuality and exploiting it?  Is that even important anymore?  In this fictive scenario, is Minaj a member of the Society for Cutting Up Men or is she just about getting money?  Can she be both?

Links

SCUM Manifesto

“Check it Out” music video

Other examples of mash-ups by this author:

An Archaeology of “Power”: Kanye, Jay-Z, and Foucault

Kings of Leon’s “Radioactive” vs. Ramon Navarro’s ”description of WWII-era waterboarding.”

“Hold My Hand” by Michael Jackson and Akon vs. ”Stinky Stuff (Hold My Hand)” by Kimya Dawson.