Did Nicki Minaj fail to solidify her "Queen" status?

[SJAG 1,597]

Disclaimer: This is NOT a Nicki hate post. Nicki Minaj has been a Hot topic lately and I thought of sharing my opinion on her latest album. Enjoy and let me know your opinion in the comments.

 

In the last couple of days I've shared my mixed feelings about Nicki Minaj, calling her out for being childish and mean for shading rap colleague Cardi B but at the same time praising her latest album "Queen", which I'm gonna talk about in this topic.

"Queen" is the fourth studio album by Trinidadian-born American rapper Nicki Minaj, released by Young Money Entertainment and Cash Money Records on August 10, 2018. Queen features production by J. Reid, Big Juice, Supa Dups, Beats Bailey, Messy, and Ben Billions. It includes guest appearances from Eminem, Ariana Grande, The Weeknd, Future, Lil Wayne, Swae Lee, Foxy Brown, and Labrinth (1)

After being feautred in a couple of song in 2017 (No Frauds, Changed it, Swish Swish and Motorsport, to mention a few) Nicki releases the first single off of her new album, "Chun-Li" (along the promotional single "Barbie Tingz", which she pretended never existed) which peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot100. (2)

At the same time Nicki collaborates with Young Thug for his new single "Anybody" and with water-allergic rapper Post Malone for "Ball for Me". A couple of months later the generic  "Rich Sex" feat. Lil Wayne and her 20th song with Ariana Grande titled "Bed" are released, peaking respectively at #88 and #43 (2) and the NICKIHNDRXX tour with Future is announced. .

Days later Nicki is featured in Ariana Grande's repetitive and nerve-wracking "The Light Is Coming", takes part in "Big Bank" (which she performed live at the BET Awards along Chun-li and Rich Sex with a tragic rainbow hairstyle) and raps her written-in-10-minutes verse in sex-offender (3) 6ix9ine's new single "FEFE" which unsurprisingly peaked at #3 so far on the BBHot100. (2)

Underperfoming singles, missing videos, a questionable collaboration with alleged pedophile 6ix9ine, the unkown album tracklist (which she even changed after being revealed) and the album date being moved back and forward (Making the Barbz and the Arianator fight for the #1 spot on the Billboard 200) were giving Nicki an hard time, being described by a Forbes article as desperate and hypocrite (4), and it's all downfall from here.

Recently, she released her favourite song off of the album, titled "Ganja Burn" (Or "Ganja Burns"? we'll never know) along a music video in which we see her portrayed as a goddess. The choice of her new single wasn't smart, considering other songs on the album were getting more attentions, being those "Barbie Dreams" (already charting) in which she jokingly shades some of her famous friends (5), and "Good Form" that started the twerking #GoodFormChallange (are we even surprised?), that becoming viral could have been great promo.

But those are not the only songs on the album that caught the attention of the public. In a couple of songs Nicki Minaj seems to indirectly mention female rapper Cardi B, which debut gave her two #1 Songs (which Nicki is yet to achieve), multiple hits and a #1 Album (6) (7).

Nicki Minaj talks jealousy being a disease, people failing at copying her and her being capable of writing her own hits. Nicki addressing ghostwriting and payola in songs and liked tweets seems to refer to Cardi B, often accused of having people writing her songs and paying radios to play her hits. But the debuting artist doesn't care about being crowned as the "Queen of rap", she says (8)

"Queen" is expected to debut with 135-150k SPS (45-55k pure) copies on the #2 spot in the Billboard 200, with Travis Scott's "ASTROWORLD" spending a second week at #1 (9). Star-studded "Queen Radio", embarassingly cheap TIDAL album bundles and HIT single "FEFE" being added last minute to the album (10) didn't help Nicki, and the release of Ariana Grande's album "Sweetener" will most probably interfere with getting "Queen" to #1.

"Queen" is Nicki's first album in four years, was it worth the wait?. Did the highly anticipated album disappointed  the expectations, or helped her solidify her (self-proclaimed) Queen of rap status?

 

Sources:

(1) Nicki Minaj - Queen on Wikipedia

(2) Nicki Minaj Billboard Hot100 Chart History

(3) 6ix9ine "Personal and legal issues" on Wikipedia

(4) "Nicki Minaj's 'Queen' Rollout Reeks Of Desperation And Hypocrisy" article on Forbes

(5) Nicki Minaj - Barbie Dreams Lyrics on Genius

(6) Cardi B Billboard Hot100 Chart History

(7) Cardi B Billboard 200 Chart History

(8) Cardi B Goes Undercover on Reddit, Twitter and YouTube | Actually Me | GQ

(9) "Nicki vs Travis: we have a winner" article on HDD

(10) "Nicki Minaj Is Selling $5 Bundle Including "Queen" Poster, Album & Free Tidal Trial" article on HNHH

[ARTPOPSTER 4,228]

Fourth Album Curse. 

[TheAlpha 3,830]

I think this is the worst time to talk about her album here. She’s on hot water.

[FameMonster01 6,665]

Yes, she has failed. Next.

[River 90,468]

Queen, the definition, needs to be deleted from pop culture, it's so childish and dumb title full of ego.. they are just people, they are pop artists, they'll never find the cure for cancer or something..

 

[Yuuri 21,636]

All of her songs failed to make an impact.

[lost in limbo 6,035]

How can you fail to solidify something that never existed?

[SJAG 1,597]

2 minutes ago, TheAlpha said:

I think this is the worst time to talk about her album here. She’s on hot water.

That's why I decided to post this now.

[DiscoHeaven23 35,007]

The album and singles have performed worse than Cardi's

 

Factually, she's not on top anymore. 

 

She is not a queen. 

 

[Eddie 2,518]

Yes she did and now with that Gaga mess tweet I hope she never recovers

[Bambino 23,630]

She's simply not the queen. Queen of what exactly?

[Kween 2,696]

She can be the Queen if she likes, but she’ll never be the Kween! 

[FarixGaga 15,354]

She claims to be the "queen" of I don't know what and yet is so insecure about her chart performance that she spends the whole day checking iTunes and charts pages on IG and Twitter. 

As she would say: YIKES.

OT: @SJAG Wow, nice edit of your post, it's impressive. 

[Smother Em Eh 6,823]

She never was that much of a “Queen” anyway, just another rapper. Don’t come for me Nicki stans 

[joanoflark 3,824]

I find it sad really. She seems really affected by Cardi B's success and it seems like her fragile ego is taking major hits. Even in the interviews I watched of her this promo tour, she doesn't seem happy at all. She's vindictive and always on edge, she loses her cool easily and starts rambling about the same thing over and over again. These are signs of insecurity. I don't think a secure person would proclaim themselves to be a queen, or talk about themselves like they're some genius, especially when the music is very subpar, safe and generic. This said, she is the biggest female rapper of all time, nobody will take that away from her any time soon so she should calm down. I recommend therapy. She doesn't seem well.