TW: mentions of SA and violence
Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion are undoubtedly the hottest female rappers in the game right now. With Nicki’s recent release of the long-awaited Pink Friday 2 album and Megan’s innovative and vulnerable single Cobra, the two stand as paragons of successful Black female musical success. However, that success may have soured after a whirlwind of diss tracks and tweets. The debacle began on January 22nd, when Megan released “Hiss”. The track contains lethal disses on big names like Tory Lanez, Paridson Fontaine, and Drake. The standout bar, though, was “these h*oes don’t be mad at Megan, these h*oes mad at Megan’s Law.” Megan alludes here to a federal law which requires information about registered sex offenders to be available to the public.
Enter Nicki Minaj. Nicki has been a massive success ever since her debut in 2007, but that success hasn’t come without her fair share of heat from the public. Nicki married Kenneth Petty, a man she says was a “childhood friend”, in 2019. Fans soon found out that Petty was a registered sex offender and had been convicted of rape in the first degree in 1994. Petty was entered in the Megan’s Law database in 2020 after failing to register upon moving to California with Minaj. Nicki assumed Megan’s bar was in direct reference to her and Petty’s situation and took to Twitter with frantic insults about Megan’s deceased mother and the 2020 shooting Megan suffered at the hands of aforementioned Tory Lanez. Less than a week after “Hiss” was released, Nicki released an entire track in response to Megan’s one, ultimately vague, bar: “Big Foot”. In my opinion, “Big Foot” had the potential to be a shockingly strong response: Nicki Minaj’s lyricism has been unmatched for over a decade. However, that potential deflated with the inclusion of several bars that Nicki had previously tweeted or read aloud on Instagram live prior to the song’s release. In the end, the song fell flat for many listeners in spite of venomous lines like “This lil’ beggin’ wh*re, talkin’ ’bout Megan’s Law / for a free beat, you could hit Megan raw”, and “The bi*ch fell off, I said, ‘Get up on your good foot'”.
It is probably quite clear that these disses exist on entirely separate planes of quality and intention. Even if Megan’s diss were meant solely for Nicki (something which I believe the jury is still out on), the difference between referencing Nicki’s husband’s public legal history as a predator and referencing the recent death of Megan’s mother and the traumatic shooting she endured is startling. My intention is not to paint Megan as a faultless saint; rather, I want to emphasize Nicki’s failure as a leader and as a woman, and explicate on how her insecurity-inspired hatred for other successful women has left a sour taste in my mouth as a previously devout listener.
The feminist movement of the 21st century is centered around the values of unity, understanding, and intersectionality. Essentially, to be a feminist is to advocate for the inclusion of all identities in feminist work and in life. In a 2015 interview with Vogue Magazine, Nicki was quoted as saying, “I think of myself as a woman who wants other women to be bosses and to be strong and to be go-getters.” However, Minaj has had issues with several big names in the female rap realm: Lil Kim, Remmy Ma, Cardi B, Latto, and now Megan Thee Stallion. The volume of specifically female rappers she had had public beef with points to her discomfort with the possibility of not being #1. She will defend her spot even when it isn’t directly under threat, never shying away from sending her army of Barbz after whoever is occupying the #2 or #3 spot on that female rap totem pole.
In my opinion, Minaj’s paranoia-fueled defense of a success she’s previously claimed to want for other women boils down to her distorted perceptions that 1) careers in the music industry are linear, 2) power and success need to be concentrated rather than spread, and 3) it is impossible for two women to truly be top-dogs at the same time. She cannot seem to fathom the possibility that for Megan to have a hit does not nullify the success of every hit she’s had before, and would rather make a fool of herself with A.I.-generated album art and incoherent live streams than face the fact that it might be time for someone else to don the crown and become the “Queen of Rap”. Nicki Minaj lost more than just listeners by coming into this one-sided beef with guns blazing; she lost respect, and she lost any modicum of status as a feminist figure.
Sources:
Frank, Alex. “Newly Single Nicki Minaj on Feminism, Meek Mill, and Rapping at 50.” Vogue, 12 Feb. 2015, www.vogue.com/article/nicki-minaj-interview-feminism-pinkprint.
“Megan Thee Stallion – HISS.” Genius, genius.com/Megan-thee-stallion-hiss-lyrics. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.
“Nicki Minaj – Big Foot.” Genius, genius.com/Nicki-minaj-big-foot-lyrics. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.