Nicki Minaj - The Pink Print (2014)

i quite liked robin james' interpretation of "fuck them skinny bitches" as referring to White Feminists who mock or disdain black pop stars' use of sexuality. branwell completely otm about how male artists' problematic aspects always get folded into their complexity and thus artistic worth - oh poor emo drake's failures and manipulative narratives are the point, oh let's completely ignore that kanye's barbs against white america have to take place on a battleground of women's bodies because ultimately that's not a struggle we care about.

i think everyone praising this song and video is aware that nicki exists within the capitalist pop machine (LIKE ALL YOUR (MALE) FAVES FFS) and tbqh i don't think it's a good look demanding that female pop stars have to be the Perfect Feminist in order to get a sliver of credit for the subversions and statements, minor or major or contradictory or whatever, that they sneak into the heart of the mainstream. and this particular strain of "you can't be a feminist if you're a sex object or - god forbid! - a sex worker" is SO DAMN TIRED.

Oh! I'd read some of RJ's commentary on Minaj on It's Her Factory before, but I was avoiding that one because, well, Vice, ugh.

But this is (predictably) brilliant:

http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/all-your-bass-are-belong-to-us

During this, the first week of the new semester, I spent Monday's class doing introductions around the room. When everyone had finished mentioning their majors -- why they chose journalism/ad-PR, etc -- I said, "It's only fair I introduce myself too" because we're spending 14 weeks together and so on. When I told them that I try to be a freelance pop critic on the side they were like, OK, cool -- one girl asked what were my favorite songs of the moment. "I'll tell you some of the most interesting songs of the moment." I mentioned "Old English" and Jenny Lewis' "She's Not Me," and "All About That Bass" and "Anaconda" and "Shake It Off."

The guys of course tittered, both at the thought that an instructor knows this stuff and that I mentioned chart stuff. The girl who asked the initial question said she loved "Anaconda" and her "boyfriend can't understand why." A stupid song about butts, he said. I asked her if this offended her. "No because he never likes what I like, but I have to like what he likes." Several students, men and women, chuckled in recognition. I said, "Well, it IS a stupid song about butts, but do you think she has a right to be stupid about her butt? I mean, there's plenty of stupid songs about vaginas and breasts and butts by guys." One guy said he didn't like it because she "steals" Sir Mix a Lot. Did you have a problem when your favorite male rappers sample? He sort of laughed and said, no, I guess not.

Anyway, I didn't want to spend the first day of a writing strategies course discussing the aesthetics of sampling when we could be talking about this other shit, so we spent a few minutes reviewing our responses to "Shake It Off" and "Anaconda." What's interesting is how the girl who liked "Anaconda" also thought Swift was "whiny" and that "she's all about her private life" in her songs. I didn't want to go down that road either, so I asked for a show of hands: how many liked Drake? About eight students in a class of 20 raised hands, including several girls. "Do you ever think Drake is whiny?" Three or four of the hand raisers said yes. "Why does he get a pass then? Why is he allowed to be whiny?" They couldn't explain. I ended the discussion. I said, to paraphrase, part of what I want to do in this class is question assumptions about your bodies, death, the familiar, hence the name Writing Strategies, etc.

So, yeah, it's great how real life intersected with this thread!

(when I asked the Drake question I did precede it with MAFUCKAH NEVER TOLD US, the only Shameless Crowd Pleasing Moment, but they laughed so)

(hey dyl i specifically said pop radio and was speaking half-anecdatally - it got zero play up here on both the top-40 stalwart and the upstart chr station that is leaning more heavily toward edm (read: white people, mostly), but i know boston and race have their own suite of issues)

i don't think i was saying that anaconda's success didn't "count," just that it was more of a hit because of the video than anywhere else. (the primacy of youtube/vevo is why the lyric video has seen such a boom over the past few years.) that it outstreamed 'wrecking ball' yet did not go to no. 1 is very telling imo.

should also note that i find this song aesthetically pleasing BUT I ALSO think that difficult listening hour's points on capitalism and point-scoring are bang on, particularly the "zero-sum game" idea. nicki has long thrived as the lone woman in the boys' club of ymcmb (never mind hip-hop), and as someone who has been in that situation (minus the worldwide fame obv) membership is reached by being better than not just the other women, but the other men, and scorching the earth in such a way that makes people think of you as ... let's call it "woman-plus."

The fact that a non number one sells or streams more than a different song that reached number one is only really "telling" in relation to the week's competition. And nicki had a new song by Taylor swift..

It's not that Nicki's hypersexual post modern barbie thing is necessarily bad, but its no coincidence that that's the one pertains that is still viable in hip hop, whereas women like Boss or MC Lyte or Da Brat can't exist in commercial hip hop

Like a modern example being Sweetz P who released an amazing mixtape this year but she's frankly too butch for the market now

Kind of amused to note that Anaconda was originally produced with Missy in mind and thinking about how differently people would be discussing it if that had actually happened.

Admittedly it's more likely they just wouldn't be discussing it at all.

anthony i'm not trying to start an argument, i'm just saying that 'anaconda' exists behind a sort of eight ball because it is automatically excluded from the kind of stations that (still, in 2014) boast about playing hits but not rap, many of which make up the radio pool from which the hot 100's data is compiled

i'm not trying to start an argument either. i'm just giving context to nicki not making number one against "shake it off's" big debut vs miley making number one against "roar"'s sixth week on the chart, since the relative placing was described as "very telling"

also my name is da croupier

mr da croupier if you're nasty

Alfred, your class sounds amazing. I'm really glad this stuff is getting taught/discussed. And I'm double glad that it's you doing it.

Maura, we've tangled on this stuff before (my husband's stupid record collection springs to mind) so I'm going to try to tread carefully to try to avoid conflict.

I get what you're saying about the whole Loophole Girl phenomenon; I've been there, too. Being the first/only girl in the room is often fraught. But there's a difference between "criticising the woman who conforms to gendered expectations in order to get/stay in that room" and "criticising the structures that put her in the room, and keep her the only girl in the room." The bad/annoying dialogue around Minaj leans too heavily on the former, IMO. This troubles me.

Nicki Minaj most analyzed not-very-good rapper in the game

"It's not that Nicki's hypersexual post modern barbie thing is necessarily bad, but its no coincidence that that's the one pertains that is still viable in hip hop, whereas women like Boss or MC Lyte or Da Brat can't exist in commercial hip hop

Like a modern example being Sweetz P who released an amazing mixtape this year but she's frankly too butch for the market now

― ra's al goole (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Saturday, August 30, 2014 7:02 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

this is on-point tho

someone brought up Missy and it's worth asking if Missy could blow up in today's market? I kinda wonder....

are iggy and nicki basically the only 2 commercially big female rappers now?

I think a new artist who looked like missy could definitely blow up today based off striking, novel, eccentric but undeniably pop songs and videos today. That's different than "if supa dupa fly dropped today would it blow up" because many of those qualities it had have been normalized

yeah it's interesting because Nicki and Iggy give you the impression of "female rappers have to be like THIS to be successful now" but Missy stepped into a field where Lil Kim and Foxy Brown had kind of presented a new standard of female rapper in the same way and she thrived anyway. i think the answer is just that Missy was a singular artist and there's always room for someone unique and galvanizing to stand out.

Honestly I think having "shake it off," "anaconda," "all about the bass," "fancy" etc at the top confirms missy-style hip-hop/pop is welcome even if people find the artists more regressive or less heroic

Some dude what about Lauryn, rah digga, early eve, Mia x etc?
Are you guys arguing that it's not narrower now?

no it's def narrower now. just saying, even then Missy seemed relatively unlikely as a major star.

"Does the 10s feel as rich as the 90s" and "could a new missy even happen" are two different things

I like lex's accidental honesty in this critique of anaconda upthread:

"lots of it really, really works."

really fascinating conversations going on here

(maura, i apologize for derailing the larger points you were making, which i agree with, with my quibbling over chart minutiae)

re: "But, it's like... there's a whole massive ILX thread about Billboard and the marginalisation of African-American music. It's been noted, repeatedly, that PoC, especially Women of Colour, have been excluded and all but erased from the upper echelons of the charts. And yet Minaj seems to manage the impossible, and chart a single at Number Two - and yet there is a whole segment of ILM which *seems* deeply invested in somehow explaining that it either didn't happen, or didn't count? Why? What am I missing, or am I reading this completely wrong?"

I don't think people are saying this (I could be wrong) so much as it seems as if most people think its chart position is going to be a happy accident but short-lived. I'd love to be proven wrong on this point (and IIRC the Billboard article did mention that radio may be coming around) but it's not really out-there as a prediction.

again, I really do think the VMAs have a non-trivial amount to do with "Anaconda" reaching #2 -- being placed at the beginning of a major awards show that is apparently playing in reruns enough for my mom to call me last night and complain that she's been in some kind of "Groundhog Day" loop of the announcer presenting 5 Seconds of Summer (yes, yes, anecdotal, but still) is not meaningless. (It's also the conditions under which "Wrecking Ball" debuted, for what it's worth.)

also non-trivial: nicki minaj has a very large, very active fanbase; it's not like we're talking about an upstart nobody here.

(that said, the "skinny bitches" thing referring to anything other than skinny girls in the club is a massive, massive stretch. it's fine on its own! she who has never, not once in her life, made a grumpy comment about skinny people gets to throw stones etc.)

i'm not rooting for women of color to do well on the charts by any means necessary. i would like it to be because good songs that they are making are given the right structural support to have that opportunity. Not that they're releasing thirstbucket singles

that reads weird, but what i'm trying to say is: complaining about too many white ppl on the charts doesn't mean i'm going to root for any old bullshit just because it's by a woman of color and happens to be succeeding

nb i like this song more than most people do, but also let's not pretend that the jlo/iggy azalea record on the way isn't just going to pop out and wipe the floor with it

ignore my first post it was very badly worded

When was the last time jlo wiped the floor with anyone

I mean yeah Iggy is almost vanilla ice hot right now but I wouldn't assume the lack of a guest spot from her is all that kept "I love you papi" from hitting #1 instead of whatever low berth it got

the multiple singles with hundreds of millions of views she's had in the last 5 years?

i dunno man i'm pretty confident this one is gonna be big: http://www.audiomack.com/song/jlo/booty-remix

idk, the last Lopez single to have any real impact was On the Floor, which was 3 years ago. Since then it's been a slew of singles that go nowhere, and videos that do decently over time but don't really "take off". And it's not as if some of those singles didn't have hit potential too. Her last album also opened to terrible numbers. She's been a persistent force in pop but hasn't been on top of the game in quite some time. Even On The Floor was a one-off.

Still not over how "I Luh Ya Papi" failed.

I think you guys are underestimating Iggy

You're right, I have a feeling it won't be no mediocre showing

Like even if its "black widow" big it ain't gonna shame nicki none

0:30 - 1:30 something of a slog, but otherwise yeah

I guess we'll see

I hadn't seen the video til now...I find the song a little less boring now :D

http://thumbs.hh.ulximg.com/public/article/600_1408546430_tumblr_nal8sgouqj1shabc6o1_500_83.gif

Don't get me wrong, no one could have seen Cher's "believe" - j lo clearly won't go down without a fight. Just saying for her to truly wipe the floor with anaconda would be a thing of many thinkpieces and grand comeback chat

http://thumbs.hh.ulximg.com/public/article/600_1408546420_tumblr_nalab0joaq1ru7khoo1_500_78.gif

Weird that Anaconda is the competitor JLo has to dethrone when Shake It Off is the actual current chart topper.

well, i think the dethroning discussion is limited to songs about thrones

Or that Melvins guys side project The Thrones
Saw them open for blonde red head what a snooze

http://jeffreycaluag.tumblr.com/post/96661774711/anaconda-nicki-minaj-choreography-by

:D :D :D :D :D

biiiiitchin