Nicki Minaj: The New Fly Girl

As I was reading Cheryl Keyes paper on the female black identity in hip hop I was thinking of current day artists that fit into these identities to see if they could be applied. Granted today I think a lot of female rappers cannot fit under just these four identities. The fly girl section is what caught my attention though, as I was reading my mind was screaming Nicki Minaj!!! just about every other sentence.

Nicki Minaj is the current day fly girl. Now as I mentioned in class I love Nicki Minaj. I'm awkwardly obsessed with her and her music. She is one rap artist I can actually rap along with being the white and acutely hip hop knowledgeable person I am (or was before this class!). But lets begin with Keyes definition of a fly girl.

"Fly describes someone in chic clothing and fashionable hairstyles, jewelry, and cosmetics" (coming from blaxploitation films of the 70's era)

Now I am sure there are many people out there who would not call Nicki chic or fashionable because her style is often outrageous to many. But lets look at the Boogie Boys description of a fly girl,

"She sports a lot of gold, wears tight jeans, leather mini skirts, a made-up face, has voluptuous curves, but speaks her mind"

Now if any of you have even seen Nicki Minaj you know that woman has a fat ass. I mean its huge. She has those voluptuous curves all over. And when have you not seen her with a made up face or tight  jeans/ pants/ leggings, whatever. On top of this she has the ever-changing hair color and styles that Salt-N-Pepa coined as a part of rap's fly girl.

Style and looks are not the only thing that make up a fly girl. They also work to accept and love their bodies which Nicki does because she ignores all the talk of the media about her behind and just says I am who I am and I love myself. She does not believe there is anything special about her except her talent as a rap artist. On top of this they sculpt their own persona (which Nicki has 4 of) and are independent women. Nicki often talks about this as she fights to be compared to and treated like male rappers because she believes she is on the same level.

On top of all this fly girls like to focus more on their rapping than their dress styles. I believe Nicki does focus on both equally because she does see her style as being a part of who she is, her music and her independence. I mean she would not be the Nicki Minaj we all know with out her style and music. I believe her to be a skilled rapper as she often has playful lyrics and utilizes wordplay well.

Punch line Queen, no boxer though
Might pull up in a Porsche, no boxster though
Tell a hater, "Yo don't you got cocks to blow?"
Tell them Kangaroo Nick, I'll box a ho

This is the opening part from her recent song "The Boys" and I love it. She is saying that she is the Queen when it comes to punch lines but she isn't wearing the shorts and leads into the Boxster which is the cheapest Porsche there is so she is making money. The next line she is basically hating on other female rappers and critics who give her shit, saying don't you have something better to do, and that she can be a boxer (kangaroos known for their 'boxing' matches) if they won't back down and she will fight them, putting them in their place. Now of course rap lyrics can be interpreted in many ways, do you have a different take? This is just an example of a recent song though. Nicki has amazing playful rap in all of her songs and I think she has the right to brag about how strong her rap skills are. Some of her lyrics are hard to understand though so definitely go check it out. Here are a couple other of my favorite songs that I think encompass her as a fly girl through rap skills and style.

Song all about how great of a rapper/ artist she is.

Roman persona

Not a rap, but I love it. Shows her skill as in artist. Marilyn is an idol of hers.

To finish this up I just want to bring up Nicki's personas I mentioned before as a part of being a fly girl. She not only made one persona but four. And they are Nicki, Roman, Martha and Barbie. Nicki is well her, Roman is a gay boy, Martha is Roman's mother and Barbie is the girly some what soft spoken persona. Watch this video to learn a little more. She explains them in her words and the show cuts of different music videos with the different personas and pay attention to the change in voice and style of rap as the personas change, it is really quite an interesting thing and takes some skill.

Interview with Chelsea Lately about her four personas. WATCH!! :)

Ultimately I believe Nicki Minaj to be today's fly girl, what do you think? How do you feel about her as a rap artist? 

If you stuck with me through all of this then thank you! I had a lot to say and I have a lot more but I should stop. But if you have any questions or want to talk about anything leave a comment! I will converse with you on this topic, rather related to her as a fly girl or not :)

Booty Shakin

This photo is from last weekend's HARD Day of the Dead show. Diplo, a producer from Philadelphia, created a video for his track, "Express Yourself"that was posted on Youtube last May and it has a whole lot of booty shakin. At HARD, Diplo asked the crowd, "Does anyone want to express themselves?" and women flocked to the stage to dance salaciously.

It seems likely that Diplo's intention is to have women come shake their booties up onstage, but the way it unfolds is a very voluntary process on the part of the women. The song's title, "Express Yourself," is by no means linguistically objectifying women. It is an invitation to do whatever it is that makes you feel alive. Diplo and his production team probably did not have to force (or even more likely, try hard) to get the dancers in the "Express Yourself" video, Quack Mini-Cat, Meaka, Ro, Nick, Timmy, and Noonie-Cat, to do their thing. This is a dance form, something that they're proud of and want to share, and Diplo is there to accept and appreciate it.

Initially, I believed that some of the responsibility of the issue of objectifying women should be put on the women for making the choice to continue to represent themselves in disreputable ways. Women should not allow men to make those decisions for them. However, as with Lady in "Pussy be Yankin" and Lil Kim's badass chick stance on hip hop, I'm beginning to see this portrayal as less harmful and more...expressive.

Watch "Express Yourself" and tell me:

Should women take more responsibility for the way they are portrayed in music videos by refusing to act and dance certain ways?

Is twerking or booty shakin a form of dance?

If women want to represent themselves promiscuously and as sex objects on camera, do they have that right and should they be more aware of the way women will be treated according to their actions?

Starting Six: On Your Bitch

After reading Imani Perry and Rana Emerson’s pieces on womanhood in hip-hop, I immediately thought back to a music video that was produced by a group of kids I knew in high school: Starting Six. The group is comprised of (you guessed it) six members all two years my senior. Their lyrical content usually revolves around alcohol, sex without a condom on, and general partying. The initial video that I wanted to discuss was one called “Thirsty” (see below), a party song that focuses on the members all trying to get the same woman’s number with the chorus “your bitch is thirstaaay.” Thirsty, as Starting Six uses it, has a dual meaning of 1) thirsty for alcohol and drinks, and 2) a desperation for sex/the men of starting six. I thought I had plenty of material to use, what with the spraying of alcohol on the video girls, specific angle shots of a the main woman in a shower, etc. Though, when I was looking for the video I came across their most recent production, aptly named: SOD (Sit up On a Dick).

To begin, the camera follows Aliky’s (the female guest star) behind as she walks up to Nic Nac’s house and knocks on his door. The opening dialogue goes as follows:

Aliky: Nic you invited me over here there’s nowhere to sit. You have no furniture…

Nic Nac: Yeah, uh, about that. You could sit on this dick?

Aliky: Ok

The rest of the video, as Nic Nac, Goose, Bread, and Big Steve rap, shows scenes of women in thongs, being covered in alcohol, being shot with toy guns, being violently spanked, sucking and playing with dick-shaped lollipops and dildos, miming use of said dildos; biting of women's underwear, mock humping of sex doll--the list goes on and on...

  This video seems to me like the very epitome of the heterosexual male gaze—rivaling Nelly’s “Tip Drill.” The female behind is the largest central focus in the camera’s gaze.

As Imani Perry states: “Even the manner in which the women dance is a signal of cultural destruction…The women who appear in [this video] are usualy dancing in a two-dimensional fashion… more reminiscent of symbols of pornographic male sexual fantasy than of the ritual, conversation, and sexual traditions of black dance” (137). The women in this video exist for one purpose only: to act as visual representations of asses of which the male viewer can imagine to “sit up on his dick.”

What’s interesting about “SOD,” though, is that most of the women exhibiting these seductive and two-dimensional dance moves are in fact not black women. In fact, the “blackest” woman in the video (in strictly terms of pigmentation), would be Aliky herself, who’s arguably showing the least amount of skin the 3 minute shoot. Aliky starts off her verse with: “I’m a bad bitch/ you a bad boy/ got a fat ass/ I’m like your play toy.” Aliky is not only complicit in the oppressive narrative being constructed, she is one of the main actors in creating it! “The video is an apt metaphor for her self-commodification…” and is a explicit form of internalized sexism.

If you're interested in more, here's "Thirsty."

Enjoy....

Amber London: Referencing '90s Female Rappers

After watching a video of Queen Latifah's early material in class, I immediately thought of Amber London.  She is a member of the Raider Clan, which is a group of young hip hop artists that are reviving 1990's hip hop style in both style and lyrical content.  This song in particular really captures her stand-offish attitude and delivery.  She is drawing from a myriad of female rap predecessor's styles to craft a unique character that is both dangerous and feminine.  Amber makes it clear that she can hang with the boys, but also take care of business on her own when they're not around.  Addressing the competition as "fake b*tches", it is clear that she doesn't want to be associated with any of the softer female hip hop acts of the moment.  Her video is a clear tribute to the "dirty South" rappers of the early '90s such as Fat Pat and Lil Keke.  Not only is she talking about the same material as the DJ Screw Southern crowd, but she is also driving a car similar to their style, as well as being dressed in very militant all black outfits.  Her posse is close to her side, representing the solidarity between friends in her crew as well as discouraging new entrants to the female hip hop world.  She has found her niche in the nostalgia for the golden age of hip hop, but one can only sustain for so long when the main attraction is reference to an older style.