(YEAR IN REVIEW) All of the Lights: Katy Perry & Nicki Minaj – Fireworks

Turn up the lights in here, baby / extra bright, I want y’all to see this  / turn up the lights in here, baby / you know what I need, want you to see everything / want you to see all of the lights – Kanye West, “All of the Lights”

2010 was a year where we began to separate the wheat from the chaff of the next generation of iconic superstars to fill our pop fantasies. True Genius Requires Insanity believes in the power of pop music. We believe that it brightens the landscape in brilliant snatches of high and low cultural intellect, and is one of the driving necessities of humankind. TGRI’s Kari “swiper_bootz” Elam provides the incisive commentary on our pop cultural beacons, and Kendrick Daye from our friends at Atlanta’s Great Eclectic provides the visuals for this illuminating journey. Enjoy!

Once upon a rhyme two bubblegum nymphs lit up the pitch black pop sky with tales of teenage dreams and rose-colored weekends. Princess Katy Perry sang this year from atop her Golden Coast lollipop tower; while Dutchess Nicki Minaj led a brigade of bad Barbies across the hard candy-coated pop landscape. This year we saw the rise and reign of the psuedo-sexual siren; from adolescent dreams to Roman’s vengeful screams Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj exemplified both sides of Barbie – the pinup princess and the dutchess behind barbs. Amidst all of the flashing lights, these two were the fireworks that took fantastical flight.

Nicki Minaj opened the year launching feature after brilliant feature across star-studded tracks. She held court with the divas, the dons, and the du jours; throwing down with everyone from Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera, to Rick Ross, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Eminem, Ludacris, Usher, and will.i.am. Co-sign after co-sign Minaj built hype and suffocated hearsay. Before long, it seemed as if the collective culture’s eyes were glued to Nicki’s rocketeering rise, awaiting with bated breath the halogenic blast of her solo debut; Pink Friday was the explosive result. The album is truly Minaj’s child, and capstoned her rookie year exceptionally well. It’s the pink hybrid hue between that clean white naive newness and raw red monstrosity; it’s the bridge between the come-up of the work week and the kick-back of the weekend, where Miss Minaj continues to blaze somewhere in between as the not-quite-a-babydoll-but-not-yet-a-boss.

Elsewhere in space, or perhaps just LaLaLand, Katy Perry brought the teenage dream to life. She lauded Angeleno starlets and San Franciscan popsicle-melters with “California Gurls,” fantasized in the twilight with her sophomore album’s title track, and blew the fuse with “Firework.” The singles were a taste, and the soundtrack gave a face to the modern teen scene: carefree kidults, faded high-flyers, over-the-top fairy tales, under-the-influence fun, a life of spectacular nights in an endless daze, all beneath the bombastic glow of fantastic reality detached. Perry brought the energy of a Tinkerbell Bardot: the enigmatic effervescence of infinite youth, and the vintage pinup playgirl blended and suspended in a state of perpetual nostalgia.

Take the dutchess’ bark, fire-breathing flows from a dungeon dragon, and the princess’ electro-pop rocks; shake, stir, spark, sit back and watch the spectacle of a sonic light show. Perhaps the truest essence of Minaj and Perry’s tandem is the captured sense of aspirational aggression – the fairy femme fatale: explosive for entertainment’s sake, the extraterrestrial California Gurl with her head in the clouds, hand in her spaceman’s pocket, and heart on the dancefloor, a massive attack courtesy of Mattel, an aerial assault on Pop culture, with the world gazing awe-struck at the little misses’ meteor shower.

LOOKING FORWARD TO 2011: On top at a culture’s nadir, aka Young Money Entertainment

One year ago I stated in reviewing the Young Money posse compilation album I Am Young Money that Lil Wayne had compiled the future of mainstream hip hop under one label. One year later, I still feel completely secure in that statement. In the past twelve months, Lil Wayne has served a jail term for drug possession on Rikers Island, and emerges as a larger presence than ever before. Young Money Entertainment boasts an impressive roster of talent with two artists (Drake and Nicki Minaj) with 360 deals, two pure hip pop heavyweight contenders (Travie McCoy and Bow Wow), two artists barely old enough to drive who have the tools for mainstream potential (Tyga and Gudda Gudda), and a capo who is at the top of the heap in sucking in eyes and ears with his unique brand of otherworldly hip hop flows.

Lil Wayne feat. Cory Gunz, “6’7” by billboard

Say what you will about Drake being a fluffy Will Smith aiming hip hop lightweight, Nicki Minaj being a robotic Barbie doll who is buoyed by charisma and incredibly smart marketing and Lil Wayne depending upon some of the most spellbindingly ignorant punchline flows in hip hop history. Between them, they’ll likely eclipse three million albums domestic albums sold in one of the worst years for album sales in the history of US modern music. Of course, people will say that studying any culture at the nadir of it’s development is not indicative of anything, as well, if people needed to eat and there were only Cheetos and Sweet Tarts available, though neither is particularly healthy, those would be the best sellers by default.

http://www.youtube.com/v/TRLSQDCkcaA?fs=1&hl=en_US

It will be intriguing to see as hip hop redevelops if the glitz over substance concept from a lyrical standpoint continues to succeed. Hip hop has more pop trending potential than ever, but what happens when a new generation of lyrical heavyweight emcees like Jay Electronica and J. Cole finally release major label debuts, as expected in 2011. Will pop radio look to authenticity? Will this cause a deeper lyricism out of Lil Wayne, Drake and Minaj? Or, has hip hop grown to a point where there can be two very distinct streams of success.

http://www.youtube.com/v/xuehVDvYsv0?fs=1&hl=en_US

All of these are intriguing questions at the core of the future of hip hop. In examining the latest in a stream of mega labels that have always been at the core of hip hop’s mainstream achievement, answers can be sought as to the future of the genre.

Lil Kim Defenestrates Nicki Minaj on "Black Friday": Commentary and Lessons Learned

Lil Kim Black Friday (full) by WhatsTheT.com

In 1998, Canibus engaged in an ill advised feud with LL Cool J based around someone in his camp thinking it advisable for the Brooklyn lyrical acrobat to go after a self-proclaimed hip hop G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time). At the time, LL was beginning his transformation from tough lyricist who battle rapped Kool Moe Dee for the better part of a decade into a ripped and jacked Chippendale lover man, giving Canibus to space to believe he could compete. Canibus opened fire on LL’s own “4,3,2,1” wanting to “rip the mic off of (LL’s) ya shoulder and let a real MC rock it.” LL tried to make a comeback in his sixteen bar coda on the track, but, he had indeed been served by the upstart. Canibus’ “Second Round Knock Out” was produced by Wyclef and even involved Mike Tyson on the track, and it incensed LL to record “The Ripper is Back,” in which he systematically insulted both him (“I’m everything you ever wanted to be”) and Wyclef (“you Bob Marley imposter”), and left the rapper in career ruins.

I tell that story only to serve as background for what will likely be the eventual pop sheltering of Nicki Minaj after being roundly roasted in the most definitive second round knockout in hip hop history, Kim’s post-Thanksgiving release, “Black Friday.” I was once advised by a friend to “never fight an ugly person.” Kim comes from a lyrical school of low blow artists. She was there and likely saw the look on Biggie’s face when Tupac betrayed their friendship for career advancement and released “Hit Em Up.” There’s no two ways about it, when a man tells another man “I fucked your wife, you fat motherfucker,” it’s gonna do a little bit more than sting. Needless to say, Kim knows how to dig deep and get dirty for a response. As with everything about her, she learned from the best.

Kim’s at present unsigned to a major label. She embarked on a multi-city concert tour this year that, much like her show in Baltimore that TGRI covered, was done to quarter filled 1200 capacity rooms, while Nicki Minaj, who in many ways is an unabashed Kim clone, is signing 360 deals, being managed by Puff Daddy, and preparing to sell 400,000 units with a debut album of a lyrical quality that couldn’t compare to Kim at her prime. Minaj is likely aware of the specter of Lil Kim at every turn in her career ascension. I’d imagine it gets infuriating to be compared to someone you probably respected, but in having precious little creative control of your career must emulate or be left with absolutely nothing. Her lyrics on “Monster” and “Roman’s Revenge” are arguably two of her best lyrical performances of her career, as by comparison the rest of her lyrical canon is not as strong. Initially dissing Lil Kim was a necessity for Minaj to arrest the spotlight. I’m presuming the “Roman’s Revenge” was completed long before it’s release, and was part of the “Diss Lil Kim” part of Nicki’s team’s strategy to go straight to the top. As we can now clearly note with “Black Friday,”its release was likely a bad move.

“Monster” awoke a sleeping giant. In 1997, Lil Kim was argued by many to be the greatest female emcee of all time. This is a time that included Monie Love, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Salt-N-Pepa and Roxanne Shante. At a time, Lil Kim, considered better than all of them. In 2010, Nicki Minaj is considered by many to be the best emcee in a long time. Key difference. Monie Love and MC Lyte are on the classic rapper tour circuit. Latifah is an outed lesbian smooching the night away on cruise liners. Salt loves Jesus and Pepa is a writer. Roxanne Shante has a disputed Masters degree from Cornell. Even further, Foxy Brown is in and out of incarceration for smacking down nail technicians. It’s not as if they’re even battling on the same field. Upon noting the titanic force of her career ascension, Minaj’s team should have scrapped “Roman’s Revenge,” replaced it with a Kim and Nicki track, and maybe contacted the emcee about doing a concert tour together with her second generation clone.

For fans of hip hop, Lil Kim just ethered Nicki Minaj. For fans of pop, there’s an angry black midget that used to be cool coming after their latest superheroine. Luckily, for Minaj’s short term career growth, fans of pop music still buy albums and concert tickets. However as has been stated on this site before, a great deal of Minaj’s marketing is built around the idea that she straddles the pop and hip hop world evenly. With one eight minute marathon diss, her hold on hip hop, not tight at all.

The moral of this story? Don’t get into a fight with an ugly person, they absolutely have less to lose.

S*** I’M DIGGING THIS WEEK: Nicki Minaj What Could’ve Been Edition

Not to rush to hasty judgments, but I think we call the first year of a mainstream career for Onika Manaj an failure. In attempting to carefully navigate the tightrope between pop and hip hop, she achieved fame and success. However, she is infinitely more charismatic than any rapper male or female in the last decade of hip hop, and is a shining beacon on where hip hop could be headed on a mainstream level. Today, I’d like to take a few moments to provide some visual and aural cues as to possible directions the Queens starlet could have improved upon from hip hop’s pop trending past that could have possibly yielded the inkling of significant long term dividends, which I believe is what anyone hopeful for a strong career for the emcee would desire.

1. L’Trimm – Cars That Go Boom

http://www.youtube.com/v/BaeNelsAOGo?fs=1&hl=en_US

Lady Tigra and Bunny D were a late 80s Dade County, Florida tandem known as L’Trimm. Flirty, sassy and funky, they were mainly a front for solid Miami bass production, and their biggest hit above, “Cars That Go Boom” was an anthem to hot rod rides with subwoofers. Imagine the same track and concept, but with Minaj at the helm. One million times more entertaining.

2. MC Luscious – Boom! I Got Your Boyfriend

http://www.youtube.com/v/mmEpgnRGZTI?fs=1&hl=en_US

After the L’Trimm fad died, here came MC Luscious with another 808 heavy dollop of sass that yes, was covered by Da Brat in 2003, but I really believe as a sample, or just re-done in the hands of Nicki Minaj could be a million seller. It fits well within the realm of braggadocios yet ultimately harmless attitude filled raunchiness that is up her alley.

3. Smooth – You Been Played 

http://www.youtube.com/v/kYueRpP_XVY?fs=1&hl=en_US

A heavily underrated production from soundtrack to 1993 film Menace II Society, I point to this as possibly the biggest winner of a song and concept Minaj could’ve chosen to ride to success and straddle the line of hop and pop. Let’s imagine if the hard edges of Smooth’s well honed “Female Mac” pimpstress persona were softened and this track was done with cute giggles, multiple voice changes and a general attitude of empowerment that didn’t end with a middle finger in the air and a glock down a cheating man’s throat. The nature of the really fun and funky horns with a heavy break is an idea that absolutely deserves to be revisited.

Let’s imagine these moments as three superstar singles for Minaj, and imagine how much more definition and direction the artist would have if the concepts and sounds were utilized. Please feel free to add other possibilities in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

ALBUM REVIEW: Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday

This album is a cold, wet fart on the dreams of teenage women, homosexuals and pop fanatics worldwide. Hip hop music needed a Lady Gaga. That is to say that hip hop music needed a force that could galvanize the teen, gay and pop communities. The new rising generation of Rap music was becoming dangerously close to being an emo boys club, dudes in New Era fitted caps and bright custom sneakers all about punchline adlibs about desiring marijuana and waxing nostalgic about not getting the girl. Because the gay, teen and pop populations have to be fans of someone, they end up liking emcees that in no way aspire to their desires to party, be silly and have a fun time. Enter Nicki Minaj. An outsized Christie doll, in an era where long time cultural outsiders are now cultural advancers, being cast as Barbie’s black friend with charisma to burn was one of the great celebrity come-ups in recent memory. However, on debut Pink Friday, Minaj is more than a rapper, more than a singer, and more than music. She is a charismatic enigma, a singular icon existing outside of music, a beautiful superheroine who happens to have a rap album where she barely even raps. But, if you love the Queens performer, that’s okay. In celebrating buying in and selling out it’s one of the most frustrating yet easily understood records in recent memory.

http://www.youtube.com/v/5FJO6b8GL3M?fs=1&hl=en_US

The main issue with Minaj as a pop star is that she wants more of a culture that now expects less. Her pop efforts on this album feal self-aggrandizing with no true success to claim, an empress in new clothes that’s ultimately naked, but given she has Minaj’s physique, you really don’t mind. The main issue with Minaj as a rapper is that she provides less for a culture that now demands more. Her attempts at being a serious rapper here are hilarious, as she is outdistanced by a great margin by her more experienced counterparts. There is no happy medium in Minaj’s career, and in strongly attempting to court both sides of her audience equally, she falls squarely in the middle, a failure to both. That’s not to say this album won’t sell. In buying this album, you buy into the concept of Nicki Minaj. She’s likely as plastic physically as she is personally. Any rapper that gets $50,000 for a verse without an album out has created a cult of personality, which this album examines. Much like people who are fans of Wonder Woman buy comic serials, if you love the notions you ascribe to Minaj, then you need this record as an autobiography. This autobiography isn’t good, but it’s not like it needed to be.

Within the first three tracks, you learn that “I’m the Best” and that she “Did It (read as shitted) On ‘Em.” Again, this isn’t the Autobiography of Malcolm X, but the autobiography of a very contrived pop creation. “Dear Old Nicki” is the most unnecessarily melodramatic of tracks, as Nicki, only on album number one, reflects on the person she was say, three years ago, and gets wistful. It’s gag worthy, but if you’re gagging while listening to this, you missed the point again that this album is not for you. On a plethora of tracks, Minaj is a singer. Yes, her roots are from Trinidad, so, it’s perfectly acceptable for her to sound JUST like Rihanna. This album gets meta on “Fly” where Nicki mimics Rihanna on a song where Rihanna sings the hook. It’s like a karaoke duet at the world’s worst karaoke bar where the MC doesn’t have instrumental tracks. Again, if you’re a member of the cult of Minaj, you don’t really care, as well, your heroine is singing, and even though it’s autotuned into tune, it’s proof that Nicki Minaj is a musical superhero capable of anything.

The moments of excellence here for those not avowed “Stan” esque fans of Nicki Minaj thankfully have absolutely zero to to with Minaj. “Roman’s Revenge features 2010’s best selling rapper Eminem crushing a Swizz Beatz production with the type of violence and misogyny we haven’t heard in years and absolutely missed from the rap legend. “Moment 4 Life” is Drake being Drake, the most pop friendly rapper since Will Smith doing his best reflective emo verse, a solid production with solid results. You also can’t be mad at the Nicki collaboration with pop music’s most fully actualized performer Will I. Am of the Black Eyed Peas. “Check It Out,” which with Will’s producer DJ Ammo on the track is a great flip of The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” and while it is lyrically deficient it’s a pop song with a solid hook not aimed for the streets, but aimed for suburban soccer moms stuck in drive time traffic and fist pump night clubs is Vegas and Miami. Definitely a case of style over substance.

Nicki Minaj is a pop concept. She’s on Young Money, so like Lil Wayne, she’s not a human being. As an outlandish plastic Barbie action figure, if you like your music steeped in reality, it is advisable not to listen. However, if you are a fan of willfully allowing yourself to be sucked into an alternative universe of “Barbies,” “Nicktionaries,” electro pop and funny voices, then yes, Nicki Minaj is probably your favorite artist of this year, and if she continues to stay fully within herself, your favorite artist of all time. This is not an album of music, this is an album of marketing. Sadly, we all expected music. Given the person we expected music from has been accused of having breast and ass implants, rocks pink hair and often speaks in the voice of a toddler, we should’ve known better.

3.5 OUT OF FIVE STARS

The Masquerade de Maîtresse Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj is the pre-eminent female MC of Generation Now. She’s a massive attack on the senses; scorching eardrums with fire-breathing vocals, and blinding corneas with neon-shine vestments – and it’s all at once. She’s so pink you can taste it – a Blow Pop, scattered, chopped, and cooked up by a local street vendor on the Brooklyn block: pank; young culture’s saccharin-infused quarter water: Pank pop. Hype, hair, and hyperimmediacy with hood-pass in hand – she is the pop face of urban misses.

Her style is a snapshot; an urban blender mixing and matching gutter gear with cosmopolitan couture – pose, a harder Harajuku girl posted on the corner of Tokyo-chic and Harlem-beast – pose, a cracked mirror brightly reflecting what’s left of iconic Barbie’s shattered remains – pose, the Young Money queenpin reigning supreme beneath a neon crown – pose, an amazonian commander-in-chief sitting shotgun rocking steady in pink – pose.

Her sound bites eardrums, breaks vinyl, and borders on schizophonia. One minute she’s a soprano-pitched Valley Girl with a bubblegum Swiss Army tongue, and the next she’s laying down lines colder than Weezy’s grill, with the bassment boss swelter of Biggie Smalls. In any given moment, she’ll switch gears like a Maserati, as she blesses every track with her manic John Hancock signature flow. Her records are deviant dialogues between a milieu of manic personalities; line-by-line she throws ventriloquist vocals across a cerebral sonicscape – from Roman Zolansky to Onika, Nicki stands somewhere in between.

FOR MORE, VISIT ART NOUVEAU MAGAZINE!

Will Nicki Minaj be a failure forever? Concern for the future of women in hip hop.

Who will save your soul if you won’t save your own? – Jewel, “Who Will Save Your Soul”

“But then again, I don’t like my rappers to look like Wonder Woman.” – The Couch Sessions’ Winston “Stone” Ford, TGRI Radio, 9/22/2010

There was a period of time at the end of 2009 while listening to the Young Money Entertainment showcase LP We Are Young Money, where I sincerely felt that Nicki Minaj was the mainstream future of hip hop. I had only seen her in passing, but her voice, bright, clear, witty and instantaneously recognizable portended to me that she could read the alphabet backwards and someone would clearly pay attention.

I then researched the 26 year old Brooklynite and discovered she went to Fiorello Laguardia High School in the Bronx, NY, aka the high school in Fame. That changed everything. The high school student with a drama concentration was clearly an actress borne with the gift of gab, and a trained ability to speak with pinpoint elocution. She was better than Lil Kim. Kim Jones was a different type entirely, purely built on the tabloid, her sex rhyming and marketed presence a way for her to push herself into the mainstream and make her way as a Barbie doll based on sex driven media attention alone. In being a sex symbol oddly more built on the verbal than the visual aspects of her presentation, Minaj was a never before seen type of rapper and given her unusual gift, her presentation as a mainstream artist was clearly something that had to be handled with a yet seen level of care and precision. In this journalist’s mind, that marketing push has failed miserably, and in doing so, leaves Nicki Minaj in a situation where her Pink Friday could easily become a Blue Monday if certain issues are not addressed.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/7301251?portrait=0

2009 BET Awards Cypher #1: Nicki Minaj, Buckshot, Crown Royyal, and Joe Budden from Douglas Rogers on Vimeo.

Nicki Minaj in 2009 when I became a fan.

The last female emcee we had in the mainstream eye whose appeal was far more based in the vocal than the physical was Missy Elliott. Missy was of course Rubenesque in appearance and was comfortable in that fact, bright and charismatic, so in couching her lyrical gift in the guise and concept of an outrageous technicolor superwoman was completely acceptable. Her mainstream presentation given her physical size and the fact that she had the charisma to pull off wearing vinyl suits and trash bags filled with helium made her a superstar, and clearly for those working with Minaj, they saw a route for success. However, there are some key issues that are different that have derailed the Minaj rise to success.

Foremost, Minaj is comparatively thin and has an overtly sexual presentation when compared to Missy. In order to create Minaj as a technicolor superheroine, you certainly don’t want to hide her voluptuousness and ogling male eye friendly bodily dimensions in hefty bags and full body suits. But, in allowing her to appear larger than life in flattering clothes opens Minaj up to hate from every single woman who will never look like her and catcall come-ons and disrespect from lascivious males unwilling to believe she is more streak than sizzle. For every girl who applies the “Nictionary” to everyday life, and every self identified “Barbie,” there’s ten other people not on board. Making fun of fat people is a culturally agreed upon point of contention. Making fun of a skinny girl who makes faces and has a unique voice: easy, and ultimately socially acceptable.

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:571841

2010 MTV Video Music Awards – More VMA Video

Nicki Minaj in 2010 when I got concerned.

When you physically look like Nicki Minaj, the vocal suddenly really does not matter and is a pleasant surprise, instead of being the other way around. In putting herself out there as a mainstream ready performer, she is leaving a far simpler world behind. When I was heavily into underground hip hop, I really didn’t care what Bahamadia looked like, but I was a fan. She was a top notch lyricist who grabbed my attention. I saw her in concert and when she didn’t meet my general standard of who I’m attracted to, it didn’t matter in my appreciation. I wasn’t going to obsessively ogle her and fall in love, but, by merit of skill alone, she had a fan for life. Minaj as an underground rapper was beloved by many who, like me, loved her elocution and unique perspective. When she became a mainstream artist, that comfort shield suddenly disappeared.

It is amazing that Drake, one of the best handled artists in the history of music, and Minaj, one of the worst, are on the same label. Clearly, they do not share the same media relations team. Drake, literally after one mixtape and one single was anointed the savior of hip hop. Minaj was a mixtape fixture until single “Itty Bitty Piggy” garnered underground buzz that alerted Lil Wayne, and she again appeared as a fixture on everyone’s record, dropping sixteen bars for literally everyone, to the point when she released her solo material, namely unconventional for mainstream R & B ears lead single “Massive Attack,” it clearly paled in comparison to her work on better produced tracks with far better known and more talented artists. Minaj is a victim of her own manufactured fame. In being presented as an emcee with credibility doing hooks and guest raps, giving her pure pop songs as singles backfires a) because it presents a disjointed public message, and b) she is not easily marketable for radio.

Prior to her disastrous performance at the MTV VMAs, Minaj showed foundation cracks in an interview with Complex Magazine. Citing “mistakes” had been made, it’s clear that not just she, but her entire team is aware that something needed to be done. Performing in a spacesuit with a black faced Will I. Am? Another poor move as in this performance Minaj appears crudely avant garde as compared to the left field shenanigans of Lady Gaga. In noting her superheroine appeal has been a positive with young women and gay men, Gaga was an obvious look, but in her first mainstream appearance outside of her bright eyed charisma, she appeared to be a flash in the pan and not the supremely talented individual anyone who has followed her career can attest to her being.

In final, can Nicki Minaj be saved? I believe yes. Clearly nothing can be done with the album right around the corner. However, a gradual disassociation from a need for her to dress and act in a particular manner to advance the gimmick she has been saddled with is necessary. Minaj is a bright eyed and bushy tailed actress with charisma to burn and a wealth of talent. She has absolutely everything she needs, and has no outright necessity for anything else. She isn’t Kim, she isn’t Foxy, she isn’t Missy. In many ways, I’ll take the dramatic stance and say that if given the opportunity to develop without ham handed and pitiful marketing attempts, she could easily one day evolve into being better than them.

Nicki Minaj is the future. However, if surrounded by the idiots this author purports her to be around, it is only she who can save her career, and ultimately save her soul.

THE DROP: Nicki Minaj’s "Your Love" is pure pop joy in a rap package

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:uma:video:mtv.com:539759

I miss the days when pop stars were superheroes. I miss those days when pop stars in videos would slay dragons, fly planes, get in gang fights, and in general use their imaginations to become larger than life creations who appeared to exist out of this world and seem able to exist as a citizen of the universe. I’m excited by Nicki Minaj because she has an imagination and the drive to be a superstar. She’s a walking, talking, living and breathing Barbie, no, even better, she’s the token black member of Jem and the Holograms, an electrified, hyper-stylized, heat seeking pop culture energy missile. It is the belief of this journalist that she is the 21st century Lil Kim, taking that archetype and adding in key cultural constructs of the last fifteen years to differentiate her from the Queen Bee. Lil Kim being angry at Nicki Minaj is as fruitless of an argument as a cassette tape debating the merits of efficiency with an MP3 file. One’s time is now, the other’s time is done.

http://www.youtube.com/v/MS1jAvCycCY&hl=en_US&fs=1
The breezy brilliance of Annie Lennox’s “No More I Love Yous” is sampled for Minaj’s “Your Love”

In this latest clip, Minaj takes a sample of an Annie Lenox classic and employs Autotune, Kill Bill, Akira Kurosawa, Michael Jai White and exquisite costuming to create a joyous pop fantasy on record and in video. If not a fan of Nicki Minaj, you’re not a fan of fun. She’s silly, harmless, cute and vapid teen pop. Hip hop needed a Britney Spears. In fact, I’ll go as far as to state that the first time I heard her bars on “Bedrock” felt exactly the same way to me as when I heard Britney Spears’ innocent cooing on “Oops I Did It Again.” Pre-teen and teenage girls needed a heroine. Ke$ha looks like she stumbled out of a dive bar where heroin was readily available into a vat filled with glitter and filth. If it weren’t for the mastery of Dr. Luke, she’d be done with by now.

Nicki Minaj is fashion, MAC makeup, pretty nails, fake eyelashes, and effervescence. Cheeky sensuality with a cherry flavored Bonnie Bell Lip Smacker on top. There’s nothing revolutionary here, but the total package is the best of talent, image, marketing and entertainment combined. Harajuku Barbie is here to stay.

LeninsTomb presents… The Verge

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the edge of a breakthrough. Last week, I wrote about Brooklyn-based blog favorites Sleigh Bells. How about something a little dirtier?

Meet Dominique Young Unique, a 19-year old party rapper out of Tampa – or T-Town as she lovingly refers to it. Dominique is the protege of Yo Majesty producer David Alexander, who has signed her to his label and given her the type of bouncy bass tracks that he made for Jwl B and Shunda K. Check out the video for her standout track “Show My Ass,” which goes from club-influenced claps to some 808 electro grime.

Look for Dominique Young Unique’s Blaster EP this month on Art Jam, and catch her at the Feedback Dance Party at DC9 on June 12th.