Let me start this piece by admitting I’m not the biggest Nicki Minaj fan. I loved her on the mixtape circuit but I was always little thrown off by her first album. Don’t get me wrong, she had some songs on that album that would solidify her career, but it didn’t connect with me. I guess it wouldn’t be much of a surprise then that I didn’t really enjoy her second album either. I always fell into the, “why won’t she just rap?” or the “how come she just won’t rap on every song like she did on Monster?”
Let me be the first to admit that I was wrong. She already had proven her rap skills, but I wasn’t satisfied. I love getting to know artists and the wigs and outlandish clothes sort of turned me off. Nicki was obviously an immense talent but it took The Pinkprint for everything to come full circle. Her interview with Angie Martinez and Elliott Wilson really opened my eyes. She was vulnerable, wise and opinionated like never before.
She was more than likely all of these things before, but for some reason it finally hit me. Watching those interviews made it very clear to me: hip-hop needs Nicki Minaj. Yes, her song writing and lyrical ability are at the top of the game; but we need her to be our queen. I’m not here to describe what a queen is or what she should look like. Queens come in all shapes and sizes. But our misogynistic culture needs a woman who can check a man in a second but also provide the warmth and protection of a woman.
Watching Nicki cry about her past love made me look at her as a Cousin or an Aunt, not just a sexual being. I don’t think hip-hop has given her a full chance to prove her full worth. She can give us love songs, she can provide a layer of our culture that is absent; we need Nicki! I honestly don’t care how she dresses or what voices she uses, she is an emcee and she takes her music seriously. I know that from this point on she will reign supreme in my eyes.
Hopefully, we can open our eyes and accept people for who they are and what they actually bring and not what we want them to bring. Setting our expectations to a level that no one can meet devalues our culture. I do think there should be a standard, but we also need to let artist bring us their work and stop trying to dictate or pre-judge their art.