Pink Friday

Nicki Minaj's "Pink Friday"; Hip-Hop/Rap; Young Money Entertainment

There's something very ordinary about Pink Friday, which came out last Friday, that is very extraordinary in itself. The main problem is that half of the album is fantastic and the other half is a run-of-the-mill hip-hop album. I'll admit to being a Nicki Minaj enthusiast, I had anticipated her album for about a year after listening to one of her mixtapes online. What happens with most of these artists is they're forced to be more broadly accepted and assuming they had any credibility to begin with, it diminishes as a result. Such is the case with Pink Friday. There are some songs ("Dear Old Nicki", "Your Love", to an extent "Blazin'") that seem somewhat inspired and its easy to tell that unless Minaj is a good freestyler, the songs weren't made in an hour. On the other hand, several songs ("Fly", "Check It Out", "Moment 4 Life") scream 'filler'; it makes sense that her record label would ask her to add these songs, considering there aren't a lot of female rappers out there, how would they make her bankable? Unfortunately by asking her to sing. Don't get me wrong, I added "Your Love" as one of the songs I enjoy so I obviously don't mind her voice, but her talent is in rapping not singing. Another thing the album suffers from is an abundance of featured artists: Eminem, Rihanna, Drake, will.i.am, Kanye West, Natasha Bedingfield, etc. The whole point of a debut is to make sure the artist's voice is heard. For the most part, the featured artists actually hurt the flow of the songs (the latter half of "Blazin"). I hate to say that I expected more from Minaj but I suppose its not her fault.

Rating: Download