Bonafide Magazine @ MSN: Review: Nicki Minaj – The Pinkprint |  |
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Posted: 31 Dec 2014 04:37 AM PST
In writing a review about Nicki Minaj’s new album album The Pinkprint, the average critic is faced with an almost extraordinary amount of internet psychobabble surrounding whether or not one should be listening to Nicki Minaj, or if in fact that she is the worst possible thing to happen to women since that bit in the bible where God says women are made from Adam’s rib. Anyway I refuse to be drawn into a debate on these lines, instead, like a true cultural crusader, I will analyse the work of art under discussion totally independently, as the singular piece of artistic expression that The Pinkprint is so clearly made under.
I am a self-professed Nicki Minaj fan and I find that particularly this year, being a Nicki Minaj fan holds many benefits. Her delivery, style and flow for the last two years have been developing and expanding with such colossal hits as Beez in the Trap and Chiraq, and has showcased a return to the out-and-out rapping assault that so characterised the Queens MC's first releases. An important consideration is that Niki’s a rapper’s rapper, as show steeling verses alongside the likes of Kanye and Busta Rhymes will testify. Thanks to her mainstream success, with such songs as Starships, this fact seems to have been conveniently forgotten by most people, certainly in the UK. Nicki possesses a mastery of classic rapping techniques which most of her male peers, certainly in terms of shifting units (I'm looking at you Jay-Z and Eminem), totally lack. With The Pinkprint, Nicki seems to have been able to find the perfect balance between those popular considerations that she must have by virtue of her extraordinary worldwide popularity and the natural longing she has to make hard-ass hip-hop. "I’m still the highest sellin’ female rapper, for the recordHoweverThe Pinkprint as an album is somewhat confused. The first few songs are undeniably poppy in their construction, yet Nicki manages to infect these songs and others such as Grand Piano with just enough hard-ass hip-hop 'vibes' to make me not dislike them as songs. That said, The Crying Game is remarkably honest and truthful in its representation of how lonely it must be for Minaj at the top of the rap game, and she gets into her stride with Feeling Myself, in which she deserves a great shout out for being the first person since Timbaland to make me not hate Beyoncé on a song. The other highlights of the album are Only and Truffle Butter, with accomplished features from Drake and Lil Wayne, Big Daddy featuring an incendiary verse from a freshly released Meek Mill, Four Door Aventador, with a hilarious Notorious B.I.G. flow rip-off and Shanghai, which sounds like Chiraq after being run through a Tron filter. Ultimately, even if you don't like soppy love songs or Nicki Minaj or hip-hop in general, you should still listen to The Pinkprint. With this album Minaj has sealed her place as Queen of Rap – she is one of the most successful and talented rappers in the game right now – and it is obvious with the work she puts on offer here. Get used to Nicki Minaj – she is here to stay. Words: Francis Hornsby Clark  |
