Member Since: 5/16/2012
Posts: 12,486
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That was a time when she’d proudly refer to herself as Nicki Minaj, aka sit-on-your-favorite-rapper-face, and spit direct digs like Dang, Lil Mama, you is such a loser. At first glance, early Nicki was a tough New York sexpot in the mold of Lil’ Kim, but her verses were more acrobatic and her wordplay more complex. She backed up her outsized personality and flair for drama with a stylistic range that was just as unpredictable. Within a few years of her first mixtape, Playtime Is Over, she was broadcasting her charisma across the industry, solidly establishing herself in Lil Wayne’s Young Money camp and lighting up songs alongside artists like Robin Thicke, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera and Kanye West. So let me get this straight/ Wait, I’m the rookie?/ But my features and my shows 10 times your pay?/ 50K for a verse/ No album out!, she maniacally announced in her benchmark verse on West’s “Monster.” A collaboration with Nicki is both a surefire hit and a gamble—to this day, she often dwarfs the artist she’s featured alongside.
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By boldly refusing to choose a single path, Nicki has become a central, if embattled, part of an ongoing conversation about today’s blurry distinctions between popular hip-hop and just plain pop. “I felt like my pop music made me have to retell my story. My credibility as an MC—I never thought I would have to explain that,” she says. “I thought it was so evident that I belonged here [in hip-hop].”
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“Looking back now, I love that I was pushed to reinvent myself,” she says, “because when I sit back and I really look, I need hip-hop, and hip-hop needs me.”
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The way she sees it, everything she does—even when it softens the impact of her underlying talent—ultimately serves a higher purpose: to achieve greater visibility for young black women in pop culture, plain and simple. When asked if she’s ever considered dialing back on any of the extracurriculars, Nicki is firm. “Helllllll no,” she says. Rap cannot contain her music, and neither can any one pursuit contain Nicki’s ambition. “I’ve done things where people are like, ‘Uhhhh,’” she says, making a theatrically perplexed face. “But every time I do a business venture or something that isn’t the norm for a female rapper, I pat myself on the back. It’s important that corporate America can see a young black woman being able to sell things outside of music.” Then she mentions that she’s planning a deal with the Home Shopping Network, and her eyes grow huge: “A female rapper! With HSN!”
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full article: http://www.thefader.com/2014/08/05/n...n-pop-culture/
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