Barbie has officially turned plastic.
The Trinidad-born, Queens-raised MC Nicki Minaj recently released her music video to “Beez In The Trap (ft. 2 Chainz),” the newest single from her newest album “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded,” and is full-on blonde, breasty, booty and brainless.
The newest daughter to the Young Money Entertainment Cash Money Records label, which hosts Minaj homeboys Drake and Lil Wayne, has caught notoriety from her featured raps that blow hip hop tracks out of the water. Her staple of Wayne-inspired irony in her words combined with her double-timed enthusiastic rhymes had the hip-hop scene anxious for her solo work. “Pink Friday” was released in November of 2011, full of cocky yet charming dance tracks that acknowledged Minaj’s many alter egos: evil twin brother Roman and Barbie, self-explanatory. And records off of “Pink Friday” such as “Moment 4 Life” and “Super Bass” showcase Minaj’s chops at both singing and manic rhyming, and that hip-hop talent can still be found in a bodacious babe.
The sudden success came to stress the curvaceous MC after some time, however, as she realized the double standard of being a female in the industry. She tells MTV,“…When you’re a girl, you have to be everything. You have to be dope at what you do, but you have to be super sweet, and you have to be sexy and you have to be this and you have to be that and you have to be nice and it’s like—I can’t be all those things at once! I’m a human being.”
However, Minaj’s singles “Stupid Hoe” and “Beez in the Trap” were released this year, wherein both videos she stares blindly at the camera nonsensically boasting about herself for three minutes straight. She is bragging so much so, it seems as if she is about to take us into a mind-blowing verse, but then suddenly drifts the tracks to a close as she nods in self-satisfaction.
Sure, confidence is key in hip-hop, especially being a female. But you can’t forget, Barbz, “you have to be dope at what you do.”
Specifically in “Beez in the Trap,” Minaj replaces any kind of a storyline with blatant close-up shots of women busting out of their bikinis slow-mo underneath confetti. It is no surprise Minaj got inspiration from the strip club. She explains, “When I see the strippers and all of that, they always show me love, so I wanted to kinda make a video around that.”
What is most heavily ironic is the fact that she knows she is disregarded for being a woman in the industry and stereotyped for only being worth a sexualized back-up dancer, yet she releases this album and video that only screams worthlessness.
Trading her usual wit, creativity and imagination for fluffy synthed synthetics has amassed in too many types hip-hop regression. History may repeat itself, but as far as Minaj is concerned, it sometimes simply does a 180.