NICKI MINAJ: IS THIS REALLY HER?

Nicki Minaj is a relatively new female rap artist who has just come onto to the scene.  She is under the “Young Money Entertainment” record label that includes platinum artist Lil Wayne as well as hugely successful newcomer Drake.  She was discovered on MySpace, where she then was contacted by Lil Wayne to help contribute on his recent mixtape Playtime is Over.   She later released her 2 mixtapes including one called Beam Me Up Scotty, which features her first single, “I Get Crazy”.

Nicki has yet to come out with her album however she has gotten a lot of buzz in the music industry, mainly because of her affiliation with Lil Wayne, her sex appeal, her sexuality, and her talent.   She talks a lot of about being a Barbie, and having relations with women, but has yet to come out with anything telling the listeners what she is all about.  Unless of course that is all. 

I came across a video of her, (it is a supposed video) back before she was the Nicki Minaj we all know today.  She wore hooded sweatshirts, baggy pants, no make up, and did not seem like anything she is representing today.

Here is a video of what I am talking about: She enters the video after 30 seconds.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRIkF9D2kuc

It made me think about why she would have to re-create herself to gain public attention.  While reading Imani Perry’s piece called The Venus Hip Hip and the pink ghetto, in the book “Politics and Poetics in Hip-Hop: Prophets of the Hood,” she scrutinizes the expectations that female rappers receive in the industry.  While reading this, I could only think of Nicki Minaj.  I think who she has become today is a choice made not only by her record company, but by her as well: over sexualized and in your face to gain attention.  On the plus side, she has gained a remarkable following because of this, and she has not even released her first album. 

When Perry mentions, Lil Kim (another female rap artist) in her article she says, “Kim has become more defined by her participation in codes of pornographic descriptions of women than by her challenging of concepts of respectability or her explicit sexuality.”  I think the same can be said about Nicki Minaj. She has appropriated the image of Lil Kim, and in turn I believe will have the same success.  But I think this is OK, if success in numbers is what she is aiming for.

To move beyond Nicki’s Image as merely “good” or bad”, I suggest we look at her image as profitable, or not.  And so far, it has been profitable.  She has created her brand, and whether that it truly her or not, should not have meaning to people listening to her music, because we of course do not know the celebrities we love, even though we think we do.    In the music industry, especially Hip Hop, it is not only women who have “sold out” to sell records, and gain media attention.  We see that displayed by people such as Soulja Boy, or even Jay-Z.  The difference however is women “sell out” by selling their bodies as apart of their brand, but men “sell out” by many other reasons.    I think it in Nicki Minaj’s case it is more of “selling out,” then a case of anything else.  I think that she has the right to use whatever means necessary (her body) to get her money, and she as well as her record label deem it necessary to use her body, and she seems to be comfortable with that.    Whether or not it is “good” or “bad” doesn’t matter if the objective is money, which seems to be rolling in.