When I read criticism of Nicki Minaj by people who have proclaimed themselves champions of True Hip Hop (or at least whatever monolithic notion of hip hop they’ve come up with) there’s this running thread of additional sexism on top of the basic assumption that these artists are all looks, no talent:

Real artists can be successful without wearing next to nothing. These women are distracting audiences from true talent and music.

The switch is convenient: one minute the artists are mannequins, without creative input, knowledge, or agency; the next they’re sirens, wily temptresses luring otherwise refined fans towards lesser art.

They are whatever the critic needs in order to make them the scapegoat.

But back to the second half of this idea, the temptress luring fans away to places of superficial art. The Distractor. The crowd would embrace Real Art, the thinking goes, if only these women would stop getting in the way. We would be saturated in Lauryn Hills if Nicki Minaj would stop making music. The entire system of production and consumption is reduced to one individual, and she’s to blame.

Popular music works with the intersection of artistic intent and popular appreciation. The two shape each other and the process of enjoying and consuming music gives the artist the ability to make informed choices. The crowd liked that song with the repeating hook; should I do that or should I play around with longer verses and slightly esoteric lyrics? The successful artist knows what works and the crowd knows what they like; they both have agency.

They both have agency.

So to pretend otherwise, to reduce the artist to a pretty placeholder or lascivious succubus and the fans to clueless sheep, is insulting and inaccurate. Popular taste is not, in and of itself, a form of internalized oppression, and despite the fantasies of critics there is no heroism involved in taking a stand against what you perceive to be a great enemy but is actually just a case of you not liking the same stuff as other people. That’s not fighting the good fight; that’s stating an opinion.

Artistic dialogue needs opinions but it most certainly does not need devils, saviors, and martyrs.

Note: While my post deals primarily with agency and sexism there are other aspects to Nicki Minaj’s career that are worth exploring to get a fuller picture: Capitalism; Gender dynamics; The racializing of Black women’s bodies; An informed history of the diversity within any number of music genres. Others have written about Minaj’s career through these and other lenses; I encourage you to seek them out.

Subtractive arranging is the opposite of how I’ve made tracks in the past, but what a great idea; put it all in the arrange view and carve away parts to reveal the song structure you want. I gave it a try the other day and found it really made my arranging workflow run smoothly.

How smooth is that guitar groove? Very. Very smooth.

I remember hearing “Da Funk” for the first time– last track, Side B (North Side), on Terry Mullan’s “New School Fusion Vol II” mixtape– and wondering what was going on. That track was a chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter sound of West Coast funk (which everyone knew from the rap hits of that era) and slow, growling acid house (which we knew from the rave and club scene). The album which later featured it, Homework, was and is one of my all-time favorites, a collection of Chicago-inspired tunes that hit hard and funky as anything you’d ever heard. The track “Teachers” was particularly important to me: the beat tromps along while an effected voice lists the influences that got DP to that point. Always give credit where credit is due.

The second album, Discovery, was broader in style and easier to market with the beer commercial-friendly hooks and shorter song times. Still funky, though. The album always read as a club night to me: Banging opener (“One More Time”), a steady stream of instant gratification jams, a downtempo track, and then at the end, the late-night, only for the true heads stuff: “Too Long”. Ten minutes of DEEP Chicago (the moment the ride cymbal comes in is everything) and the track I play when I DJ.

After that, I stopped paying attention to Thomas and Guy-Man. The Human After All and Tron: Legacy era didn’t do much for me.

This track, however… man. It’s gonna be a funky summer. I can hardly wait.

Here I am.