Can Someone Please Explain Nicki Minaj to Me?
Dude, I keep seeing American Idol previews, and even though I don’t even watch that show (I can’t take awkward television), it only takes a few seconds and a mere glance at Nicki Minaj’s too-pink lips and cartoon hair for me to get annoyed.
I know they brought her on to skew the show’s judging panel down toward the youth demographic, but honestly, I don’t get her, and it’s starting to bug me. Does she give anyone else a “trying too hard” vibe? I feel like she is all about weird voices, alternate personalities, hairstyles and bright lipstick, and she’s skipped over the part where she’s supposed to be super-talented to earn her place in our hearts and minds and have actual experience in the music industry before she can act like this.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not even being an apologist for the other judges. I find them all to be kind of annoying, but at least they have success in their respective fields. Mariah Carey, for example—I don’t like her music all that much and she seems like a crazy diva monster, but she at least has a good voice and twenty years in the business to back her up and earn her my respect. In fact, I don’t know if you’re with me on this, but for the first time, I kind of really sympathized with Mariah Carey on this one, like I wanted Nicki Minaj to grow up, shut up, and stop rolling her eyes like a teenager.
In case you think I’m just being all “get off my lawn” about pop music and its cast of characters, I will say that while this is mostly correct, I really do get and appreciate Lady Gaga. She is a good singer and plays the piano, plus she dresses like she’s a piece of living performance art, and I can appreciate all of that. But, and maybe I’m wrong here– at least she proved herself by performing a lot and being talented before she started being known for being eccentric. Am I wrong about this? Are Nicki Minaj’s songs actually better than I think, and I only listen to the Sirius XMU Indie station so Nicki Minaj is just not on my radar? I really only know her from that Kanye album and now this American Idol stuff, and I thought she was British until last week, and then I saw an Idol promo where she was clearly American, and this tripped my “Annoyance Meter” to the point where I actually now cringe when I see her face.
Especially THIS face, which she seems to pathologically need to make in every photo.Frankly, all of these faces and shenanigans have lead me to conclude that Nicki Minaj is a phony, and that she knows this, and that she has to overcompensate by being a weirdo and picking fights so no one will notice she slipped in the back door of the “fame” industry, and put her out with the American Idol auditioners, where she belongs.
Is there something I’m missing? Please feel free to point me toward a place where I can watch Nicki Minaj being totally amazing. And, in case you're going to send me to her top three videos on YouTube (including the lackluster Superbass), I’ve seen those, and I am still not convinced. To me, she seems like a well-connected girl with a quirky personality who is not bad at rapping and doesn't mind showing her body, sort of like the Tila Tequila of pop music. I'm not at all sure this combination is enough to sustain her in the music industry, or that she's even qualified to be a judge on American Idol.