Music Review: The Pinkprint

There is a prevailing and unnecessary dichotomy surrounding Nicki Minaj that has divided fans and critics into two factions: those who consider her a rapper extraordinaire and those who consider her a dance-floor diva. Many believe Minaj should stick to the hardened cuts of her mixtape days and guest features, while others applaud her penchant for poppy Top 40 fare. To me, this is reductive and altogether misses the point of what makes her so unique as an artist. Minaj is a ferociously talented rapper with the skills to market herself to the mainstream. While some of her output has tended towards the faceless and generic, The Pinkprint (mostly) rectifies this issue with a series of musically excellent tracks amplified by Minaj at her most confessional.

The Pinkprint at its best brings together rap and pop in innovative and catchy ways, defying the characterization of Minaj as belonging to either one or the other musical styles.

However, the poppiest of her forays tend to lean towards anonymity. Previous pop-categorized smashes like “Starships” molded Minaj’s lunacy and charisma into a package palatable for rap connoisseurs and teenagers alike, but The Pinkprint’s pop-centric tracks fall short of her previous standards. The raunchy “Get On Your Knees,” with a saccharine hook provided by Ariana Grande, suffers from a sluggish beat and a sound mix that flattens Minaj’s voice into a monotone that deprives this so-called sex jam of desperately needed energy and vitality. The harrowing “Bed of Lies” squanders cuttingly introspective verses about Minaj’s recent breakup with longtime boyfriend Safaree Samuels, as Skyler Grey’s awful chorus derails the mood with silly lyrics like “Do you ever think of me when you lie? Lie down in your bed, your bed of lies.”

The rap-centric tracks are more successful, yet the production on these songs feels less imaginative than that seen in some of her previous work. “Only,” a song Minaj has highlighted as a specific callback to her mixtape roots, wastes technically flawless yet lyrically noxious verses from Minaj, Drake, Lil Wayne and Chris Brown on a spare production that sounds like a single doorbell ringing. Bafflingly, the song credits five producers for this. The Biggie-esque “Four Door Aventador” is more intriguing, with a slinky beat combined with a more stilted flow than usual from Minaj, more similar to spoken word than traditional rapping. “Truffle Butter”—another collaboration with Drake, who this album cements as an ideal musical partner for Minaj—blends warped house music with rapid-fire lyrics about opulence to create the album’s best pure party jam.

The Pinkprint’s best tracks mix Minaj’s rap and pop instincts to greater effect than ever before. “Feeling Myself” is a worthy contender for Minaj’s best song, on par with previous highlights like “Come On A Cone,” “Beez in the Trap” and “Super Bass.” She and a sassy Beyoncé trade verses over a beat that sounds like a chorus of crescendoing slide whistles, and the lyrics are absolutely hilarious. The ubiquitous “Anaconda”—a seeming novelty song—sounds much more at home within the context of the album, where it functions as a redemptive respite from the largely oppressive sadness of the tracks. The “Baby Got Back” sample is genius and repurposes the objectification of the original into something more empowering.

Minaj is a singular talent with a preternatural knack for hooks and lyrical tricks. Ultimately, The Pinkprint’s refusal to lean into exclusively pop or exclusively rap is telling of what makes her so appealing. The three top-charting songs from the album— “Anaconda,” “Only” and the pop ballad “Pills N Potions”—encompass the range of Minaj’s talents and show that her core audience is receptive to all modes of Minaj. The Pinkprint is not perfect, but it is as self-defining an artistic state as she has made at this stage in her career. Nicki Minaj has chosen to please everyone, and she has largely succeeded.