YESTERDAY'S NICKI MINAJ
Seven Months / Seven Features / Seven Verses. That is all it took for Nicki Minaj to solidify herself as the new Queen of Rap after going on a HERstoric feature run that would be impossible for most rappers to duplicate. Repeat - Seven Months / Seven Features / Seven Verses.
Imagine being a 15-year-old girl in 2010 and witnessing Nicki Minaj be more animated than Ludacris, turn
Usher into a "Lil Freak," mischievously rap, "Did I Kill a Queen, now Alexander McQueen" hold her own
amongst men on "All I Do Is Win Remix," outshine golden-boy Drake on 'Up All Night," go "Bottoms Up" with
Trey Songz, and turn into a "Monster" her first time rapping alongside Ye and Jay-Z.
How could you not want to grow up to be a female rapper?
Nicki made us all "not wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you niggas" way before Kendrick
Lamar shook up Hip Hop with his "Control" verse. Not only had the Queens MC become notorious for turning other people's songs into her hit song, but many happily paid her to do it, "50K for a verse no album out." In 2010, Ye not only declared Nicki Minaj the "scariest artist in the game right now," but told Angie Martinez she had the potential to be the #2 rapper of all time, and this was before she turned Friday Pink.
But, now we are in 2021, and borrowing from Fat Joe's popular catchphrase, "Yesterday's Nicki Minaj Is Not Today's Nicki Minaj."
TODAY'S NICKI MINAJ
One doesn't have to look further than former Young Money running mate Drake to see how much Nicki Minaj has worn out her welcome as a featured artist. Drake used Nicki on his last two projects and did not allow her to rap one single "noun or verb" on his albums. Instead, on "Scorpion," he opted to sample
Nicki's classic "Boss Ass Bitch" performance at Powerhouse. While on "Certified Lover Boy," Nicki was relegated to being a glorified voice memo on "Papi's Home." This meaningless inclusion of Nicki Minaj on CLB felt like a show of pity by Drake, who allowed Nicki to attach her name to a highly-anticipated project without requiring any lyrical work.
In episode 330 of Popcast, the hosts were asked, "It feels like Nicki Minaj is on the outs with the mainstream superstar rappers. Where she used to feature on a lot of big projects, she now mostly sticks to songs with up and comers; Sada Baby, Bia, Tekashi, NBA Youngboy, or Popstars doing watery cash grab collabs with people like Karol G, Meghan Trainor, Jesy Nelson, etc. Do you think her absence from recent superstar rap records is her choice, or there's?"
Ouch!
It's evident that "Today's Nicki Minaj" is struggling to recapture the feature boom that "Yesterday's Nicki Minaj" once enjoyed. Inquiring minds want to know why an artist would still pay "50K for a verse" or more if Nicki can't get a top 40 placement, help with chart stability, and most likely will have them "freefalling" after the first week?
In addition to chart struggles, Nicki Minaj continues to make herself a feature liability with her appetite for beef, inability to properly promote a song (y'all seen those IG Lives), plus a looming court case. So with all of that, why wouldn't artists start to wonder if "Featuring Nicki Minaj" does more harm than good?
CHASING FORGETTABLE #1s OVER CHASING CLASSIC VERSES
So, how did Nicki Minaj go from being the "It Girl" to people questioning her status as a featured artist? Jon Caramanica, the host of Popcast, speculates that the change started post-Bodak Yellow when lines were drawn in the sand between Cardi B and Nicki Minaj's camps, and artists "leaped to work with a
fascinating new talent; to say nothing of
post-Megan."
While I agree the beef with Cardi B did no favors for Nicki Minaj. Cardi B could never draw a line long enough, build a mountain high enough, dig a valley low enough, or spread a river wide enough to keep Nicki from success without some type of self-sabotage from Nicki herself.
Cardi B did not force Nicki Minaj to abandon her once fearless quest to out rap the best muthfckaz on their own tracks for this single-minded pursuit of competing with Cardi B for Billboard 1s. This is why Nicki is doing these "watery cash grab" collabs in the hope of getting quick hits as she did with "Say So" Remix and "Trollz."
When Nicki Minaj prioritized chasing forgettable 1s, she not only played right into Cardi B's hands but
began losing the demographic she needs the most to put the crown back together again - THE GIRLS!
Everybody loves a good battle of the sexes, and when Nicki alerted the world she would be putting her pussy on these niggas' sideburns, the women had our champ. A girly 5'3" MC who did not want to be one of the boys, she just wanted to beat them...and she did!
Nicki flaunted that not all heroes wear capes; sometimes, they just wear pink and carry a sharpened #2 pencil.
But now Nicki doesn't give girls much to root about anymore. Gone are the debates on if Nicki could/would out rap your fave male rapper because she doesn't challenge herself anymore; you don't need a cape to out rap Sada Baby and 6ix9ine, sorry not sorry. While her flow is still impeccable, no one wants to listen to her switch her flows 20 times just to take shots at the same 3 girls. We're tired of the internalized misogyny (a whole other topic contributing to Nicki's overall fall off)!!! This is probably why Drake did not want to give Nicki a chance to rap, fearing he would be dragged into one of her beefs by association.
I want to hear, "Where my bad bitches, fck these niggas give them trauma/coulda fixed his life, but now that nigga need Iyanla," not her turning the Say So Remix into a diss track. If Nicki is not going to go at these niggas then what is the point? In fact, she should just stop diss'n period and push herself to give us classic verses that add to her legacy and her claim to being the sole Queen of Rap.
I can't tell you where those seven features in seven months charted, but I know plenty of girls who can still rap those seven verses word for word 11 years later. How many female rappers who have gone #1 will be able to say the same? How many of Nicki's recent features will she be able to say the same?
HANG IT UP, FLATSCREEN, OR ONE MORE RUN?
I believe Nicki Minaj has worn out her welcome as a featured artist...almost. She still has some nostalgia factor working for her, but not much. If you were one of those girls at 15 years old watching Nicki rap circles around Rap, R&B, and Pop boys, then it may still mean something to get on a track with her, even if you know it most likely will not result in a hit song.
Also, suppose Nicki starts to sprinkle in some features with rappers that push her as an MC, where she can't simply rely on the low-hanging fruit of dissing one of the main girls. In that case, she gives herself a chance at pulling off another HERstoric run by proving that "Yesterday's Nicki Minaj" is still hanging around.
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