Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday

Nicki Minja has got love from JS-NYC for the longest. She's been kind of a force over the last couple years, grinding like Joell Ortiz with a million mix tapes and even more guest verses. With a work ethic like that, it's small wonder that she's been snapped up by the Young Money roster. The buzz was crazy for her debut full-length and for the most part, Pink Friday is a solid record. Judged by the current 'two decent songs, five skits and ten filler tracks' hip-hop record standard, it's exceptional.

Nicki's playing a good lane on Pink Friday: while more than capable of slackness, she's not rhyming entirely raw, nor has she risen to the bait when L'il Kim and the like have tried to ride her coattails back into the limelight. She's good with the young kids and adult fans, plus she can get pretty gutter with the rhyming when she'd got to keep the ears of the street scene. All of these factors have made Pink Friday the second-largest selling debut by a female hip-hop artist, behind The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. For those that need the pot sweetened, there's some high profile collabo action with Drake, Will.I.Am, Kanye and Rhianna here. On the darker end of the collabo spectrum, the Eminem track Roman's Revenge is one of the stronger points of the record, featuring a typically unhinged performance from the Shady One. Beats are smooth, with heavy dips into the breakbeat and 80s samples. Pink Friday is going to move a lot of units, especially with the holiday coming up. Check it out to see Nicki Minaj the pop star, and look around the net for one of the many mixtapes floating around to see her more gutter side.

R

No comments: