Let's be clear, I am a Nicki Minaj fan. A fan of her business mind, her ability to stay outside of the typical Female Hip Hop MC, making her own lane with the Hip Pop genre as her forte and of course those crazy curves! Many fans of Nicki Minaj don’t know her back when she was featuring on many of the NYC Hip Hop DVDs like S.M.A.C.K., The Come Up, Cocaine City and many more. Back in those days Nicki branded her self as a female MC from Queens, NYC and she shopped a lot her music to labels, radio stations and many other outlets but they paid her no attention. As a graduate from La Guardia High School, one of the most prestigious performance arts school in NYC, Nicki was apt to playing different roles and letting her explore her multiple talents and personalities. Barbie is the most notable personality that Nicki often refers to in her current music and because of a lot of people overlooking her in NYC until she signed to YMCMB she has made a conscious effort to stay outside the box of the typical NYC female MC. She has done a great job at that and has proceeded to break many Hip Hop and Music records with her first album, Pink Friday, which is now double platinum.
Since 2012 began I have been posting the Hip Pop category and this is the first time I’m going to elaborate on why I decided to do this. If you think about the top “pop” stars in the world like Rhianna, Black Eyed Peas & Fergie, Justin Bieber, Pitbull, Nicki Minaj and many more. Much of their style comes from a Hip Hop foundation and even in the persona’s Hip Hop is a constant reference. At one point when Vanilla Ice was hot, he was actually a Hip Hop artist with a Hip Pop persona. At that time in the game that type of music and brand could not survive due to how real Hip Hop was at that time. Nowadays, there are all type of scandals that are public with top rappers in the game whether it has to do with sexuality, fake identity, snitching, etc. Basically fans and the industry need to realize it is 2012 and the genre of Hip Pop is the biggest in the world. It will continue to grow and get even crazier, but it needs to be documented so when all is said and done it will not be categorized with Hip Hop. Hip Hop is a genre that originated from the soul and it had a message, positive or negative, it had a message that you could understand and that the struggle could relate too. No matter how big Nicki Minaj or the Hip Pop genre many grow, fans still want to relate to artis on a personal level. Not just on an MTV documentary or with tracks titled “Super Hoe”, I just hope Nicki Minaj realizes the opportunity she has to make a clear distinction between Hip Hop and Hip Pop. Right now, the game and aspiring female MC’s need her to get back to Hip Hop.
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