You Could Be A King, But Watch The Queen Conquer

Kanye West featuring Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, and Benjamin Bronfman “Monster” (Uncensored)

There’s a lot of guys rapping and singing on this track, but all of that is a warm up for Nicki Minaj’s performance in the second half of the song. It’s a true tour de force, one of the most impressive, exciting, and distinct rap verses in a long time. Minaj has been building her reputation as a song-stealer for the past two years, dropping inventive, wildly charismatic verses on a string of hits, but “Monster” is a clear tipping point. It’s the culmination of everything she’s done to date; the place where she totally upstages two of the biggest rappers in pop music; the song that announces her as a STAR and not just a promising rapper or a great guest.

One of the great things about Nicki Minaj is that she fully embraces camp. This is most apparent in how she presents herself visually — she’s a “Harajuku Barbie;” she’s the heir of Missy Elliott’s avant garde video style; she’s the African American answer to Lady Gaga. Her campiness is more exciting on record, though. She’s not afraid to go way over the top, and her voice bounces around between cartoonish extremes with incredible ease. She seems most comfortable playing dress-up and make believe, transforming herself into something larger than life. She creates an image, an armor, a voice, and runs loose inside it — in a lot of ways, she’s like a drag queen! It’s a natural fit, really — why wouldn’t that kind of flamboyant character and self-made ego fit naturally in the context of rap? It makes you wonder what rap could become if more MCs took cues from stuff like Ru Paul’s Drag Race and Paris Is Burning.

Minaj’s tics and funny voices may grate on some listeners, but they give her a dynamic, often totally unpredictable presence on tracks. She gives you bits to listen for, little moments that are exciting and interesting and make you want to rewind over and over. That bit in “Lil Freak” where she goes “they wetter than the RAIN THEN / Usher, buzz me in / everybody loves RAAAYMOND!” is a prime example. Typing that out barely hints at the subtle strangeness of her inflection, the tiny bits of personality that come through to make it so sticky and silly.

If you go through lots of her stuff, she doesn’t really do the same trick twice. She’s always finding a way to say something in a compelling, ear-catching way. The best rappers do this in their own way, the boring and so-so rappers, not so much. In some ways I’d compare her to Ol Dirty Bastard, in that she has that willingness to go far out to get a line across, and also this musical delivery that steps outside the boundaries of strictly rapping rhymes without actually singing. She’s not exactly inventing anything — you can trace bits of her skill set to a number of the best rappers ever — but she’s in the process of refining her persona, and mastering a lot of tricks essential to being a truly great MC. I can’t wait for her next move.