Nicki Minaj: Pink Friday…Roman Reloaded

Nicki Minaj
Pink Friday…Roman Reloaded
(Cash Money)

I still don’t know quite what to think of Nicki Minaj. Her guest verses on songs like Kanye West’s “Monster” and Drake’s “Make Me Proud” are fantastic. Her first solo LP, Pink Friday, was a mostly forgettable, meandering, mediocre collection of songs, none of which lived up to the potential displayed on her guest verses.

Nicki Minaj’s second LP, Pink Friday… Roman Reloaded, is almost evenly divided into two EPs. The first thirty minutes of the album consists of Minaj rapping in a variety of accents about a variety of genitalia. The second half of Roman Reloaded is a bubblegum, sweet as sugar, bland as bread collection of pop songs.

The part of the rapper’s album that is actually rap is great. Songs like “Come on a Cone,” which features a magical five seconds of Minaj singing “Put my dick in your face,” are the redeeming gems of the album. The following track, “I Am Your Leader” features a chorus in which Minaj tells us to “suck a big dick.” This kind of lyrical tomfoolery is what made Nicki Minaj interesting in the first place.

There aren’t such nice things to say about the second half of Roman Reloaded though. Songs like “Starships,” which begins with the lyric “Let’s go to the Beach,” almost feel like some sort of cringe-inducing satire. Then are the tracks that can’t even be ironically enjoyed, like the indescribable failure, “Marilyn Monroe.”

Nicki Minaj should stick to what she knows, or at least devote most of her attention to it.