(ThyBlackMan.com) Nicki Minaj, aka Onika Tanya Maraj, disappoints me. As a fan of quality hip-hop, I immediately concluded that Nicki Minaj is every bit as talented as her male counterparts. Her flow is smooth, creative and powerful, and she could easily make hit records and perform battle rap at the highest levels. Most rappers can’t do that.
But, for some reason, someone told Nicki Minaj that she wasn’t good enough the way she was. They told her to pile on enough makeup to turn her face into a construction site. They convinced her to toss some fake hair on her head and add some extra-long fingernails. They then had her get enough surgery to make up four episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.
Now, with all the fake body parts that we see on-stage, the real Nicki Minaj has disappeared and been replaced with a plastic, female Frankenstein with enough implants to smother an elephant. You can see the implants clearly because there are typically no clothes to cover them up. In other words, she’s a half-naked mess, desperately trying to turn one trick after another in order to keep the attention of her easily-distracted fans.
Not only did Nicki Minaj’s appearance worsen over time, but so did her lyrical content. She says she believes in the empowerment of women, but it’s hard to find anything empowering about the idea that your self-worth comes down to the size of your butt. Instead of being even a shadow of the woman Nicki Minaj could have been, she has become a toxic teacher of young girls, the role model from hell. In Nicki’s world, a young girl should never waste time with a man who might be a good husband and father. Instead, girls should be chasing dope boys, “killaz” and babies daddies who can afford the price of whatever she’s offering for sale.
This makes me sad, because as ignorant as Nicki Minaj is, hip-hop has become so disgusting that it no longer makes room for women with any message other than the one that is most degrading. It’s hard to imagine that Nicki really had any other choice, and I truly doubt that even Nicki Minaj herself was eager to transform into the embarrassing caricature that she has become. Healthy promotions of sensuality are one thing, but Nicki makes Kim Kardashian look like Michelle Obama.
To understand how we’ve allowed big corporations to distort our minds into becoming something that we are not, we may want to return to our roots. Africa remains a place where family values actually mean something and dignity has a value that goes beyond the size of your record deal. Michael Imhotep from The African History Network is one of the people who can help us understand these lessons.
In an intriguing radio segment below, entitled, “Nicki Minaj, Anaconda & The Marketing of Destruction to African American Youth,” Imhotep speaks about how harmful media influences affect the thinking and self-esteem of black children. Nicki Minaj is the target, with her video “Anaconda” serving as an interesting topic of conversation. If you haven’t seen the video, you should probably take a look. It will give you a sense of the imagery that’s being marketed to young black people, and may also help you understand why STD infections are becoming a worse problem than they were before.
The video has over 300 million views, so Nicki Minaj may consider it to be a success. But the question is whether money is the only way that we measure achievement in the black community? Is it impossible to have a double bottom line of community responsibility that exists in conjunction with the all-mighty dollar? After all, if whites control most of the wealth in America, does our dependence on money as a source of self-esteem dilute our ability to become self-sufficient?
As a case-in-point to show just how differently artists today are trained to think, you should take a look at a speech given by the group TLC after winning a number of Grammys in 1996. In the speech, the group members go out of their way to explain that they are proud to be role models for young girls and honored that children look up to them. They also seemed to feel that being responsible to their community was just as important as making money.
Fast forward a few years later, and Nicki Minaj is shoving a banana down her throat. Do you ever wonder what a 9-year old girl is going to think when she sees that video? What kind of future are we giving her? What is her perception of womanhood? What kinds of relationship choices is she going to make? How does this affect her self-esteem? How will she expect men to treat her? Will her kids have a father or a sperm donor? All of these realities are shaped by the mind that we implant into the skull of that child, and she’s learning every day from media.
Michael’s show is at this link, please please please check it out. You’ll enjoy it, his words are powerful and informative. The fact is that, in this critical phase of black history, we must be willing to draw lines in the sand and let the world know what imagery is and is not acceptable to our children. If we let others continue this intellectual genocide much longer, our community is going to perish.
Staff Writer; Dr. Boyce Watkins
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. For more information, please visit http://BoyceWatkins.com.