
Nicki Minaj and her Ever Evolving Meltdown
Nicki Minaj throughout her career has been mischaracterized by media and
fans alike. But this last month for Nicki has confirmed the worst perceptions
that we as the general public have had of her. Lets see…doing an hour and a
half interview with Funk Flex and rehashing issues with your reality Star ex
and getting into a public twitter feud with him, check. Blaming one of the
biggest streaming companies for not giving her the same support as they
do to other artists,check. Blaming the hottest up and coming rap star’s new
born baby and his uber popular girlfriend for his album beating your’s for the
number one spot on Billboard, check. And taking subliminal shots at the
Princess of the Bronx, Cardi B. Who is not only seen as America’s darling but
also a threat to Nicki’s “Queen” throne, check.
Queen, is Nicki Minaj’s fourth album and what I and many people think is
the most critical juncture for her career. She is coming off of a very public
break up with Meek and rumors of Safaree, her ex-longtime boyfriend,
writing for her and that her writing was not the same without him have been
rampant. Mentioning Safaree, this a good place to start for Nicki and her ever
evolving media meltdown.
A couple of weeks ago, her and Safaree got into a war of words publicly on
twitter. It all started with Nicki airing out their dirty laundry from there
previous relationship and spoke of him at length spending money on hookers
and stealing money from an account that he allegedly deemed the “Free
money card”. Nicki has to be Smarter than this, she is revisiting an incident
that literally has no value for us as fans or any pertinence to her album. Yes it
provided fodder for us to draw attention to the rollout of her album but that’s
all it was, fodder. I expect more from Nicki, because she is an unquestionable
superstar. She has sold out world tours, starred in Barbershop 2, had
countless hits and how can we ever forget her career defining Monster verse. I
know it has become cliche now but she doesn’t conduct herself like the
superstar she is. Instead she acts like a 14 year old in middle school perched
over her Iphone like the Hunchback of Notre Dame monitoring Twitter for
any criticism towards herself. Of course we all have to show that we are
human sometimes, even the Queen of Young Money, but the way in which
you show it, determines what type of Star that you are, take a cue from
Beyonce .
Then there was the situation of her blaming Spotify for the lack of coverage
on their platform and her underperforming numbers. Shortly after her rant
on Spotify, a representative from the company responded with the facts of
what they had done for Nicki: “Spotify supported Nicki Minaj with a Times
Square billboard, a host of the largest playlists, New Music Friday and the
new music release shelf,” the rep said. I feel like her attack on Spotify is just
an excuse for her for not claiming the number one spot. It doesn’t really have
any validity, she is just being a sore loser. The thing about this media
meltdown that she is having and why I can actually laugh at it, is the fact that
it isn’t some type of mental health breakdown, it is a breakdown based out of
her own narcissism and competitiveness. Nicki can’t take the fact that she
isn’t number one. Don’t get me wrong we love and even encourage for our
rappers and athletes to have that mindset, of always trying to number be one.
But as we our all taught as little kids, no one likes a sore loser. And that can’t
be exhibited any more with the unreal beef that she propelled against Mr. La
Flame, himself, Travis Scott.
Travis Scott and his team had the innovative idea for the rollout of Astro-
world to including do 9 consecutive days of original merch drops. So each day
there would be original merch that would not be sold again after that day it
was initially sold on. Included with the merch would be a digital download
with the album, which would count towards Travis Scott’s sales.This practice
is common place in the music industry used by the likes of everyone from
Taylor Swift to U2. But this was apparently too much of a transgression for
Nicki to ignore:“Travis sold over 50K of these. With no requirement of
redeeming the album! With no dates for a tour, etc. I spoke to him. He knows
he doesn’t have the #1 album this week. I love my fans for the #1 album in
AMERICA! I’ll explain on #QueenRadio 4 albums in, #1 in 86 countries. I put
my blood sweat & tears in writing a dope album, only for Travis Scott to have
Kylie Jenner post a tour pass telling ppl to come see her & Stormi. lol.#Queen
broke the record of being number 1 in 86 countries. Thank Jesus & thank you
to my fans. I looked at the numbers the Carters, Kanye, Nas, etc recently did.
Travis sold 200K in his first week off clothes alone. I spoke to him last night &
he said he’s beenselling clothes b4 the music. Billboard says they’ll change
the rules cuz of this, so it should be changed now!”The fact that Nicki not
only blamed the merch aspect of it but also she blamed Kylie And Stormi.
Kylie promoted the album to her fans, as she should because that his her
significant other, I never knew it was against the rules to promote another
artists album on Instagram *shoulder shrug*( I never thought I would defend
a Kardashian, but herewe are ). After all the hooplah that Nicki made about
Travis’s merch, she forgot one major aspect of her gripe against Travis, she
did the same exact thing! She sold merch bundles that came with a digital
download of her album. At this point instead of criticizing Mr. La Flame, Nicki
should take a page from his book. Instead of complaining about his merch
sales, how about building up your merch brand so that it is as coveted as
Travis’s. Instead of using Queen Radio to air out people, she should use it as a
testing ground for new songs or loosies that did not make your album, similar
to Travis’s .Wav radio. She should have used it as a breeding ground for up
and coming artists especially those coming from New York. Speaking of New
York, there is the metaphorical Cold War-esque Environment that loom
between Nicki and Cardi.
It is not an unknown fact, Nicki and Cardi always havetaken Call of Duty style
potshots at each other. For reference remember that whole Motorsport
situation or most recently cardis VMA acceptance speech, where she made
vague references to Nicki stating “That’s something money can’t buy Bitch”.
Nicki should know by now that when the young hot thing goes against the
established artist in hip hop, usually it does not end well for that established
artist. Flashback to ten years ago when Lil Kim was in a similar position to
Nicki and accused Nicki of biting and being a lesser version of her. It did not
end too well. It would be better if Nicki just embraced Cardi especially since
she is fromNew York instead of going toe to toe with her.
Also how could we forget about the most recent incident involving Cardi and
Nicki at Harper’s Bazaar fashion week event. Even though some of the details
are still murky, there was a video that was leaked that showed Cardi trying to
fight Nicki and her entourage while apparently Nicki’s entourage egged and
antagonized Cardi during the entire incident. This incident highlights more
of Cardi’s follies ( fighting at a fashionweek event, being to easy to get riled
up and not knowing how to exercise conflict resolution as a global megastar )
but the fact that this included Nicki and is a direct result of comments she has
made on her Queen Radio show and interviews shows us that Nicki even
involving herself in an incident like this speaks volume. Then there was an
impromptu photoshoot that Nicki had right after the incident with the papa-
razzi, trying to look very un-bothered even though she was obviously looking
very bothered and perturbed by the entire incident
There is a recurring theme with Nicki and her ever constant bickering and
antics. Instead of throwing people like Travis and Cardi under the bus she
should be taking a page from their book and not blasting them on “Queen
Radio”.

