Nicki Ménages Urban Black and Latina Sexual Identities

Along with her many voices, Minaj’s lyrics are full of gender play and homo/bisexual innuendo. She roles up in her whip not with her fellas or a team of ride or die girls, but rather, “with a bad bitch that came from Sri Lanka,” i.e. a fine chick by her side (M.I.A. perhaps?). Furthermore, if she is not referring to herself as one of the scariest (“Freddy Kruger I’m a rap bitch nightmare”) or most threatening (“It’s Friday the 13th and guess who’s playin’ Jason”) male figures to hit 1980s theaters, then she’s likening herself to other men, even David, a Biblical favorite saying: “In this very moment I’m King, in this very moment I slay Goliath with the sling…Clap for the heavy weight champ…me.” She embodies these men, but she is also a woman with a “pink wig thick ass” that gives men “whip lash” when they stop to check her rollin’ up in a “Barbie Bentley,” and ain’t afraid to let a girl know: “’Scuse me little mama…I’m lookin’ for a cutie a real big ole ghetto booty. I really like your kitty cat and if you let me touch her, I know you’re not a bluffer I’ll take you to go see Usher.”

With her approach to lyricism Nicki Minaj has distanced herself from finding power in the raw sexual expression alone of say, Lil Kim, and turned to claiming male, androgynous, and multisexual identities to locate her power, agency, and rootedness in the hip-hop game. Some scholars and “conventional” feminists might say that finding power in masculinity is a reproduction of the same oppressive system that sees the feminine as weak and undeserving of power or leadership. In response, I would point out that Nicki Minaj has adjusted to and used to her advantage the masculinity that oozes from hip-hop culture and urban representations, cleverly flipping it upside-down on its head, and using the master’s (hip hop industry) tools (hypermasculinity) against him in his own house in an almost mocking way.

At the same time, Minaj is reflecting the transforming approach to gender and sexuality of the new generation of inner-city New York youth, the growing community of urban gay teenagers and their absorption into hip-hop cultural understanding. Speaking to Bronx natives Yuri, 17, China, 16, who both identify as straight teenage girls of color, and Jamilia, 18, who identifies as a young Black lesbian gave me insight into this.

According to all three girls, there is a certain shock value that comes along with “the gay stuff” that even though not necessarily expressing Minaj’s true sexual identity (Minaj has publically denied being gay or bisexual), still makes her likeable to an array of urban youth. China and Yuri add that gay youth like Minaj for promoting their community, straight guys for the sexual appeal of her lesbian fancies, and straight girls because she’s badass. Minaj’s lyrics, voices, and personas both attract and address different sexually oriented communities, even though it is for lyrical play and not for truth. However, more than simply reflecting, is Nicki Minaj also impacting the youth perspective?

Jamilia explains that Nicki Minaj is making the gay community larger. Fresh from middle school, incoming freshmen at Jamilia’s high school are identifying as gay at the tender age of 14. Returning to my friend’s comment about there being no gay youth back in the day, Jamilia sees their growing visibility as attributable to the music of artists like Nicki Minaj who bring bisexuality, mixed gender identities, gender play, and homosexuality to the forefront allowing kids to identify with it, in turn, as she points out: “Nicki Minaj is making it cool to be that way,” as well as acceptable.

Essentially, there seems to be an earlier awareness of the possibility of gay identity, whether certain or not, an awareness that Jamilia attributes to the exposure that artists like Nicki Minaj give to alternative sexual identities and her embracing them.

I’m basing my discussion largely on women because it is almost exclusively young lesbians that are increasingly visible in urban spaces. China thinks the openness of lesbian teens has to do with young girls coming of age surrounded by other girls in Catholic schools with the idea in mind that being attracted to and intimate with girls is accepted, partly because it is glamorized. I would add that, on the other hand, the relative invisibility of gay teen men is in part due to the glorification of heterosexual masculinity in urban communities, which is also reflected in hip-hop music and its surrounding culture. Even masculine lesbians fit within the urban and hip-hop ethos more than gay man. So while it may be cool, sexy, or at least acceptable to be a lesbian, the hypermasculinity that defines “the streets” might discourage gay male openness, for which there is also no rap promoter.

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