666 ReVeNGe 666
TROLL IS LIFE
Nicki Minaj needs a big win right now. The Young Money rapper is just two-and-a-half weeks out from the release of her fourth studio album, Queen, and she’s clearly feeling the pressure of entering a rap landscape that looks drastically different than when she dropped her last album, The Pinkprint, in 2014. For one, Minaj is no longer the industry’s token female rapper: She now has to contend with the younger, more vibrant and pop-savvy Cardi B, who’s already scored two Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits off her debut album, Invasion of Privacy.
Much of the genre now belongs to younger artists whose aggressive, minimalist punk-rap hybrid sounds totally at odds with Minaj’s pop-rap crossover bids. (The rest of it belongs solely to Drake, who so thoroughly dominates charts and streaming services that he might as well be his own subgenre.) If Minaj wants to reclaim her place among the pantheon of hip-hop elites, then Queen needs to be an all-killer, no-filler collection of dizzying bars, pummeling beats and razor-sharp hooks designed to earn her plenty of streams and radio play.
Her album rollout suggests she’s about to deliver the complete opposite.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2018/07/25/nicki-minaj-queen-album-rollout/#485977062ddb
Much of the genre now belongs to younger artists whose aggressive, minimalist punk-rap hybrid sounds totally at odds with Minaj’s pop-rap crossover bids. (The rest of it belongs solely to Drake, who so thoroughly dominates charts and streaming services that he might as well be his own subgenre.) If Minaj wants to reclaim her place among the pantheon of hip-hop elites, then Queen needs to be an all-killer, no-filler collection of dizzying bars, pummeling beats and razor-sharp hooks designed to earn her plenty of streams and radio play.
Her album rollout suggests she’s about to deliver the complete opposite.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2018/07/25/nicki-minaj-queen-album-rollout/#485977062ddb
