Nicki Ménages Urban Black and Latina Sexual Identities

by Guest Contributor Sabia McCoy-Torres

Nicki Minaj got media circuits buzzing after performing alongside Madonna at the Super Bowl 2012 halftime show and then commanding the stage a week later at the Grammy Awards in a Catholic themed extravaganza. As usual, Minaj got people talking about sex(uality). After the halftime show, viewers jokingly wondered why a sensual kiss between Madonna and Minaj never transpired.

Meanwhile, Minaj’s Grammy performance included a mini-film depicting a priest making a house call to exorcise the demon possessing a child named Roman. Roman was referred to many times as “he” but when the child was revealed, rather than a boy we saw a tormented and psychotic Minaj with long blonde hair applying pink lipstick singing “I Feel Pretty.” Does the possessed boy become Nicki Minajwhen dressed in drag? Is Minaj possessed by Roman, a boy who likes pink lipstick and Broadway songs, or is she just trying to be as quirky as possible? Regardless of where Minaj was leading her audience, it was clear she was toying with gender presentation and interpretation, a hallmark of her persona that has an impact on her community of listeners.

I most recently noticed the impact that the openness of artists like Nicki Minaj to sexual ambiguity is having when I returned to my neighborhood in the Bronx after a two year stint living in Costa Rica. In that brief period away I realized much had changed: men in the hood were wearing tight jeans, 80s style had come back in full effect, and there was a growing visibility of what I dubbed “neo-soul Black hipsters.” I also noticed an abundance of pretty teenage girls on the 4, 6, and D trains to the Bronx with their equally handsome boyfriends who on second glance, and sometimes fourth and fifth, I realized were actually two beautiful girls unabashedly holding hands, in the midst of quiet embraces, or giving voyeuristic displays passionate kissing.

A friend recently asked me: “Remember back in the day when there were no gay youth?” And I had to agree that I shared that memory. Of course it wasn’t that there were no gay youth, rather it was that they weren’t as visible, especially in our predominately Black and Latino neighborhoods. It was clear to me that a shift had occurred while I was away. Gay openness was becoming not only a thing of adult men and women in the West Village but also of urban Black and Latina youth in inner-city New York.

My seventeen year old sister, who identifies as a straight, mixed Black and Puerto Rican female, also reflects this new shift in urban communities. She recently broke down to me the many terms for the varying types of young lesbians and was shocked by my ignorance of them. There were AG’s, Femmes, Studs, and many more, each label describing a specific style and gender persona characterized by different degrees of masculinity, femininity, or a complex melding of the two. To my sister this was common knowledge, whereas when I was a teen such title distinctions were strictly “gay knowledge” and the rest of us chilled in our heteronormative worlds not really concerned with our gay classmates. Additionally, only “certain” people had gay friends, in other words, gay and straight teen social worlds did not mix much. There is a stark contrast today that is demonstrated by my younger sister’s knowledge and the comparative lack of heteronormativity in her social world.

All in the same moment of my return, Nicki Minaj hit the scene hard. It may seem a little late to bring up Nicki Minaj and sexuality; however, I am not concerned with questions of Minaj’s own sexuality rather the way in which she reflects the openness towards diverse sexual orientations, ambiguity, gender play, and androgyny that I see around me, and growing, on inner New York City streets.

While Nicki Minaj’s visual representation is hyperfeminine (as well as uber-weird), her image often contrasts with her vocal style and lyrics. Minaj has voices for her many facades, which are often connected to a gender persona or sexual orientation–a deep baritone androgynous voice, and a gruff, aggressive male one, that she might juxtapose with a feminine “girly-girl” voice. All can be heard in a single verse on Kanye West’s “Monster.”

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