Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded

Nicki Minaj has managed to become a pretty big deal of late, appearing in venues from the Superbowl on down over the last year. Hopefully she's not getting fleeced six ways to Sunday through her YM/CMB deal, but regardless she has shifted a whole lot of units of Pink Friday already and stands to shift a gang more before the record runs its course.

Minaj does a valiant job of being all things to all people on Pink Friday. Opening with the 80s pop inflected Roman Holiday, things get a little more gutter with the following Come On A Cone before getting way street with I Am Your Leader, a track notable for a good Rick Ross guest verse and the first decent Cam'ron verse I've heard maybe ever, even if it does get a little Twista (never a good idea) towards the end.

Beez In The Trap features 2 Chainz, neck deep in his Sean Price transformation from his former Titty Boi appelation. He's better than I remember, and I would venture this track will continue his rise towards crossover notoriety. Wayne, Nas and Drake all make solid guest shots, as does the pretty irritating Beenie Man (why did it have to be Buju?). The guest shots are heavy, but it's important to remember the reason why we are here: Nicki can body a track and is arguably the best female MC since Lyte.

Rhyme skills aside, Minaj is also a fashion and pop culture icon, a hero to a zillion young girls around the world with ahas a Hulk-sized personae that dwarfs her diminutive frame. Things skew a little too much towards to the image end of things, but at the end of the day that demo is among the few that still pay for records and pony up absurd ticket prices to see her in enormous rooms. And let me reiterate: Nicki can rhyme her ass off, unlike a lot of image-driven artists in hip-pop today. Pink Friday is not going to bump G. Rap or Finesse off the JS-NYC playlists, but is a hell of a solid release for the hip-hop records of today.

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Nicki Minaj - Love Pink

They don't get much bigger than Nicki Minaj in this day and age. She's definitely got the female Lady Gaga thing going where she gets love from much more than just the hip-hop set. Pink Friday has moved some serious numbers and the follow-up Roman Reloaded seems poised to do the same. In the interim, we have Love Pink, comprising 20 tracks that work the same crossover angle that made its predecessor such a success. Bully for her, but there is a real club vibe to most, if not all, of the tracks that I am evidently way too old for. Mary J., Katy Perry and Willow Smith all make appearances, as do Gucci Mane, for what that's worth. The Wayne track is pretty aces, but at the end of the day, I'm going to put Love Pink firmly in the meh column, with the hope that the next mixtape is a little bit more gutter.

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Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday

Nicki Minja has got love from JS-NYC for the longest. She's been kind of a force over the last couple years, grinding like Joell Ortiz with a million mix tapes and even more guest verses. With a work ethic like that, it's small wonder that she's been snapped up by the Young Money roster. The buzz was crazy for her debut full-length and for the most part, Pink Friday is a solid record. Judged by the current 'two decent songs, five skits and ten filler tracks' hip-hop record standard, it's exceptional.

Nicki's playing a good lane on Pink Friday: while more than capable of slackness, she's not rhyming entirely raw, nor has she risen to the bait when L'il Kim and the like have tried to ride her coattails back into the limelight. She's good with the young kids and adult fans, plus she can get pretty gutter with the rhyming when she'd got to keep the ears of the street scene. All of these factors have made Pink Friday the second-largest selling debut by a female hip-hop artist, behind The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. For those that need the pot sweetened, there's some high profile collabo action with Drake, Will.I.Am, Kanye and Rhianna here. On the darker end of the collabo spectrum, the Eminem track Roman's Revenge is one of the stronger points of the record, featuring a typically unhinged performance from the Shady One. Beats are smooth, with heavy dips into the breakbeat and 80s samples. Pink Friday is going to move a lot of units, especially with the holiday coming up. Check it out to see Nicki Minaj the pop star, and look around the net for one of the many mixtapes floating around to see her more gutter side.

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Ludacris - Battle Of The Sexes

So Battle Of The Sexes has been rumored to be dropping for some time now. Originally the record was going to be a split release with Shawnna, but when she bailed on DTP, the record morphed into a quasi-concept record with a gang of guests. Say what you want, but you can't dispute that Luda can rhyme his ass off. He also grinds seriously. He is everywhere, from commercials to movies to mix tapes. He's kind of like Heavy D was back in the day, in that he had skills, but was well-liked by serious rap heads and pop fans of all ages. I'm sure his radio background didn't hurt either.

So, the record. The first couple singles were pretty decent, especially My Chick Bad with Nicki Minaj. The tweaked vocals on How Low are pretty cool for a normally played-out concept and Hey Ho actually sounds pretty decent for having Lil Kim's Jocelyn Wildenstein looking ass on it. Check Hey Ho on Jimmy Fallon with ?uest on harmonized vocals. All this bodes well, especially as I can name on one hand hip hop records that actually have three solid tracks on them. I'd say that Battle Of The Sexes actually scores a lot higher than that. I'm not sure what they were thinking with that Sex Room song, but all in all this is a pretty solid record. For a commercial hip-hop release it's fucking exceptional. You might actually think that Def Jam has some life in them.

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