She sorta feels like a cross between Lady Gaga and Missy Elliot, with maybe a sprinkling of some Santigold and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (RIP, lady).
She's Nicki Minaj, discovered on MySpace and now backed by Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment and Universal Motown, and she's about to release a record that is likely to complete the well-known formula for mega-stardom. Just see the samuria-inspired video for "Your Love."
But before she became the next natural development in over-produced pop ladyhood, Nicki was an ambitious, rough-ridin' female MC who more or less didn't play around. Above, "Warning." The track follows Nicki as she learns her man is messing around with some other lady named Kim.
The hook: "Damn. I'm'a have to send her to her Maker." The ending? An instant classic.
I've also had "Go Hard" on loop for weeks now, thanks in part to a sample of the track used at the end of a long mix from last year by Nguzunguzu/Total Freedom. In the original track, this couplet just kills it:
Hit 'em, hit 'em knock-knock, tell 'em let me in.
My name rings bells, bitch, buzz me in.
And I only stop for pedestrians,
Or a real real bad lesbian.
(Then Lil Wayne just has to adlib: "Ohhh!") Minaj did well at the BET music awards over the weekend, and it's clearly only the beginning. Wayne, her mentor, is already "jealous."
Shit, who wouldn't be?