SoapBox: Nicki Minaj is an extremely underrated rapper

[Kyriakos]

The patriarchal music video world forces talents such as Minaj to show only one or two facets of their abilities, and then merely bloat those for all the target audience to see. Sad but true. In a better world Minaj would be teaching higher music harmony to the generations of blessed children of a hate-crime-less society.

Alas, so much talent goes to waste. The lone and level sands stretch anacondas.

 

[warpus]

To answer my own question, I did a quick Wiki search on her main singles. She didn't write a single one by herself.

So if you like her lyrics and think they're witty, congratulate the big team of professional writers who worked on them.

Isn't this how most "top 40" type musicians roll? Their music is written by others and their lyrics are written by others..

I don't know much at all about Minaj, except that for a while I thought she was a Bollywood star of some sort, but I'd bet she excels at the public performance side of things AND she looks good. That's why she got the gig. Her music is written by people who know what they're doing.

Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but these people make the "top 40" not really because they're good at writing lyrics or even composing music. Looks and stage presence go a long way.

 

[Zack]

I'm pretty sure she wrote her Monster verse.

 

[luiz]

Isn't this how most "top 40" type musicians roll? Their music is written by others and their lyrics are written by others..

I don't know much at all about Minaj, except that for a while I thought she was a Bollywood star of some sort, but I'd bet she excels at the public performance side of things AND she looks good. That's why she got the gig. Her music is written by people who know what they're doing.

Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, but these people make the "top 40" not really because they're good at writing lyrics or even composing music. Looks and stage presence go a long way.

Well yeah, they all do it. All those Miley Cyrus and One Directions and Nicki Minajs. And that's alright, but don't praise them for lyrics they didn't write and melodies they didn't come up with!

And I'm not even sure they're that good singers, with all the synthesizers and stuff they use. I wonder how Nicki Minaj would sound a capella.

 

[Hygro]

Interesting article on Minaj's role and path written by another female rapper http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/selling-herself-short-the-miscontexualization-of-nicki-minaj

Here's 88 songs that made wikipedia that she wrote or co-wrote. i.e. there's more that wouldn't have made wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_Nicki_Minaj

Minaj got her start via a series of mixtapes as seems customary these days. She also rhymes kind of weird word choices. I think she probably writes (or had written) much of her own material.


Kind of weird to see Minaj and Cyrus in the same list as One Direction. Very clearly different levels of creative control by the artists.

 

[luiz]

Interesting article on Minaj's role and path written by another female rapper http://www.theawl.com/2010/11/selling-herself-short-the-miscontexualization-of-nicki-minaj

Here's 88 songs that made wikipedia that she wrote or co-wrote. i.e. there's more that wouldn't have made wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Songs_written_by_Nicki_Minaj

Minaj got her start via a series of mixtapes as seems customary these days. She also rhymes kind of weird word choices. I think she probably writes (or had written) much of her own material.


Kind of weird to see Minaj and Cyrus in the same list as One Direction. Very clearly different levels of creative control by the artists.

When I look at the credits for her singles, every single one was written by a big group of professionals. Every. Single. One (seriously, click on the links of the list you posted. Some don't even include Minaj at all despite the category being "Songs written by Nicki Minaj). When I look at the credits for say "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Tangled Up in Blue" it just says "Bob Dylan", not "Bob Dylan and fifteen other people paid to write it because Dylan isn't good enough to write his own songs".

For me Minaj and One Direction are about on the same level of artistic merit, with the difference that I've seen a video of One Direction signing "God Only Knows" a Capella (together with many other artists) and they actually did pretty good. I rather doubt Minaj would pull that off, but who knows.

 

[Zack]

Well I doubt One Direction are very good rappers. What's your point?

 

[luiz]

Well I doubt One Direction are very good rappers. What's your point?

That I'm unimpressed by an artist that doesn't write her own lyrics, is not responsible for the melody and for all I know can't even sing well (though I could be mistaken on the last point). Much like Minaj, the folks at One Direction don't write their own lyrics and are not responsible for the melody, but at least they've proven they can sing well.

At any rate, I'm not saying she has less artistic merit than One Direction or Miley Cyrus, I ranked them all on the same category ("very limited artistic merit").

Considering the gazillions of dollars she's making and the fact that she is receiving praise for lyrics she didn't write, I think it's safe to answer the OP's question: "no, she is not underrated by any stretch, quite the opposite".

 

[warpus]

Maybe I'm being too hard on those who sit on top 40 music charts, but from my understanding a lot of them are just products. They are good performers, whether that means that they have good stage presence or whether then can actually sing well.. They are attractive.

The ability to actually write music and/or lyrics is not required. That can easily be done behind the scene by others.

But you know, I don't listen to music like this so you shouldn't be listening to me.. I'm just repeating what I've read somewhere about the music industry.

 

[Zack]

That I'm unimpressed by an artist that doesn't write her own lyrics, is not responsible for the melody and for all I know can't even sing well (though I could be mistaken on the last point). Much like Minaj, the folks at One Direction don't write their own lyrics and are not responsible for the melody, but at least they've proven they can sing well.

She's not a singer, she's a rapper. So why are you judging her by her singing ability and not her rapping ability?

 

[luiz]

She's not a singer, she's a rapper. So why are you judging her by her singing ability and not her rapping ability?

Is that a real distinction on her case? She sounds more like a pop singer than a rapper.

And we can still judge rappers on whether or not they write their own lyrics, no?

 

[nc-1701]

I'd like to put forward Iggy Azalea as a similar case. She is incredibly popular to hate on, but admit it, chances you'll find her music actually decent - even if you claim to hate her.

A lot of the hate she gets does seem very odd, I think she's a tier below Nicki Minaj but absolutely not as terrible as many make her out to be.

To answer my own question, I did a quick Wiki search on her main singles. She didn't write a single one by herself.

So if you like her lyrics and think they're witty, congratulate the big team of professional writers who worked on them.

Just to make a note on top of the list already posted by Hygro, when she writes it is credited to her legal name "Onika Maraj", so that's part of your confusion. Also she is credited first as a writer, and I think essentially all songs have backup writers.

Here she is freestyling, no beat, auto tune, etc.
Start at 42 seconds...

Link to video.

 

[Commodore]

A lot of people don't really seem to take Nicki Minaj seriously, which is sort of understandable from one point of view. Her outfits can be silly, everyone saw Anaconda, and there was that song where she said "You a stupid hoe" like 40 times in a row.

But get past the canonical "bad songs", and she delivers a lot more than most other artists who've been out in the last 5-10 years. She has a wide variety of content, good range of flow, a variety of tempos and is a very strong feature.
In that sense she reminds me of Eminem in that she usually takes over songs that she is featured on and dominates them. On top of that she's one of a very few rappers who've done a song with Eminem and made it work without being relegated to background noise/chorus, Royce de 5'9" being the other that immediately comes to mind.

Not saying she's the best by any stretch, but it's difficult to name more than a handful of mainstream rappers from recent times who are for sure ahead of her. Add on that the talent pool for female rappers is sadly not very deep and I think she should get a lot more respect than she does.

Maybe people would take her more seriously if she would actually add depth to her lyrics and rap about something meaningful instead of playing up the stereotype of the "gangsta" lifestyle. Anyone who plays up that stereotype or portrays that lifestyle in a positive light automatically gets no further consideration as a serious artist from me.

 

[sophie]

Well that's a shame, because it means you miss out on the Wu Tang Clan, Nas, and Biggie.

 

[Commodore]

Well that's a shame, because it means you miss out on the Wu Tang Clan, Nas, and Biggie.

I didn't say I won't listen to them or even enjoy their music, just that I won't list them among the great musical artists.

 

[jackelgull]

Did anybody here call Nicki Minaj one of the great musical artists?

 

[luiz]

Just to make a note on top of the list already posted by Hygro, when she writes it is credited to her legal name "Onika Maraj", so that's part of your confusion. Also she is credited first as a writer, and I think essentially all songs have backup writers.

Here she is freestyling, no beat, auto tune, etc.
Start at 42 seconds...

I noticed that that is her name and she was listed as one of the writers of many of the songs she supposedly wrote (though, bizarrely, not in all). My point was rather that she didn't write "her" songs by herself, but always had a big team of professional writers. As I said, "Like a Rolling Stone" was written by Bob Dylan, not Bob Dylan plus a bunch of writers. And musical preferences aside, we can all agree that the lyrics of "Like a Rolling Stone" are to those of say "Starships" as Isaac Newton is to an amoeba.

As for " essentially all songs having backup writers", no. That only applies to lesser composers.

And the video won't open even though I'm in the US

 

[luiz]

I searched Youtube for her freestyle stuff and it's alright, but still hardly enough to qualify her as a great artist. I mean, I've seen far more impressive stuff at MC duels in some sketchy joints in which entrance was less than 5 bucks...

So Nicki Minaj, underrated? Eh, no.

 

[Quintillus]

I mainly know her from a B.o.B. song that she was a guest on, and it was the most profane one on the album with no redeeming qualities for the profanity that I could notice (and overall my least favorite track on the album - many of the other songs were pretty good). What little else I've heard of her hasn't done anything to change my opinion that she's just another rapper who's popular in part because of shock-value lyrics.

Maybe she does have a lot of better stuff out there, but when my primary impression is an auto-skip track, I'm not very likely to give someone another look. To me, overrated would seem a lot more accurate than overrated.

Although in light of different opinions, I watched some of nc-1701's video (copy the link, then delete the duplicate YouTube part of the URL to get it to play). It's better than what I'd seen before, but not enough that I have any particular desire to seek out more. And my impression of using a lot of profanity for no real benefit is reinforced. If it adds to the emotion or to a point, sure, it's legit... but a lot of artists, including her from what I've seen, seen to include it by default and it's very rare that I see that as really having artistic value or making the music better. Branch out the vocabulary and save the heavy stuff for when you really want some emphasis.

 

[madviking]

i agree with everything owen has said (i swear i'm not a brownnoser), but i would like to add that we need more nicki minajes in the rap world. best nicki is obnoxious nicki (cf. aforementioned "monster" verse, "anaconda", "stupid hoe") and not lazy nicki (cf. "starships"). she reminds me a lot of missy elliott, but with a lot more mainstream exposure.

Spoiler :

(looking back, missy elliott feels like she should deserve more respect; "get ur freak on" is an all time classic, with "one minute man" and "work it" also being noteworthy.)

having more nickis and missies would be great for hip hop/rap music, as they are more pretty edgy female rappers each with a different thing to bring to the table.