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This video shows female veteran MC Lyte giving Nicki Minaj praise of how she change the face of female rap.

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How Pink Friday Created A Lane For Female Rappers. Review

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How Pink Friday Created A Lane For Female Rappers. Review

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This review goes over the success of how Nicki Minaj rose to fame in a short matter of time, but has an impact so powerful

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Nicki Minaj with a pope impersonator at the Grammy Awards. Credit... Jason Merritt/Getty Images

BARELY a year and a half has passed since the release of "Pink Friday," the platinum debut album by Nicki Minaj, but her style is well honed. She's a sparkling rapper with a gift for comic accents and unexpected turns of phrase. She's a walking exaggeration, outsize in sound, personality and look. And she's a rapid evolver, discarding old modes as easily as adopting new ones. This hard and complex work has paid off: when she releases her second album, "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded," this week, it will be as the most influential female rapper of all time.

What's even more striking is how far her reach extends beyond hip-hop. When Madonna needed to tether her current comeback to the young female transgressors of the day, she chose Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. (Savvy Nicki would never be the one to throw up a middle finger.) At the Grammys in February she gave the most shocking performance, part exorcism and part Broadway spectacle. And in the lead-up to her new album, out on Tuesday from Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Republic, her new songs have shown that she has no intention of being hemmed in by the expectations of genre, dabbling in slithery R&B on "Right by My Side" and outright giddy dance-pop on "Starships." When rapping on the songs of others, she's often the most capable M.C. around - take Birdman's "Y. U. Mad?" - but on her own material she's often straddling a line between hip-hop and pop that no other rapper is capable of, or would even dare.

A few years ago, before her rise began, there were hardly any female rappers of note; now, a new generation, including Azealia Banks, Brianna Perry and Angel Haze, is rising quickly, working territory that she carved out. This is a story about influence, to be sure, but also about the weakening of old walls, and the reshaping of the gates that the gatekeepers keep. Thanks to Nicki Minaj and the possibilities she has laid bare, and to hip-hop's stasis of masculinity it is, outrageously and unprecedentedly, a more exciting time to be a female rapper than a male one.

As much as anything, this reflects what a barren playing field Nicki Minaj, 29, arrived onto. She signed with Lil Wayne's Young Money Records in 2009 on the strength of a couple of years' worth of mixtapes and street DVD appearances. The Nicki of that era was brassy and coarse, and intermittently clever. She had no real competition, and when she signed with Lil Wayne, there was little indication that she would drastically rewrite the rules for female rappers.

She did the obvious, and then more. She became a nimble, evocative rapper. She became an intricate lyricist. She became a thoughtful singer. She became a risky performer. She invented new personae. More than any other rapper in the mainstream, she pushed hard against expectations, and won. Only rarely did she allow herself to appear secondary to her male counterparts - even on songs like "Monster," alongside Kanye West and Jay-Z, she more than held her ground. That was part of the blessing of being singular: with no one around to compare herself to, or for others to compare her to, she became her own watermark.

While that was happening, she morphed into the most eclectic black-music style idol since Grace Jones, and certainly the one with the quickest ascent to the style elite, with a look that's loud, cartoonish and edging toward avant-garde. (Deep down, she's too much of a populist truly to go there.)

She's been on the covers of Vibe, XXL and the Fader, sure, but also of Cosmopolitan, Black Book, Elle and V. The current issue of Paper magazine features a modest Minaj on the cover: salmon blazer, lemon yellow top, Oscar-the-Grouch-green tangle of curls. Inside is a 16-page fashion spread full of models (sprinkled amongst commoners) wearing Nicki-inspired fashion: multicolored Afros, top-volume animal prints, neon makeup and shimmering fabrics, on both men and women.

In short, emulating Nicki Minaj isn't hard, because there's so much to play with. It's possible to take just a part of what she's done and come off as refreshing. And that's just what a new wave of female rappers has done. Take the bawdy Harlem rapscallion Azealia Banks, recipient of a heap of Internet affection in recent months. Like Nicki Minaj she raps and sings, and plays with various accents. (Like Nicki she went to La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan.) Many of her best songs have been one-off collaborations with electronic music producers like Lunice and Machinedrum, But despite the blog success of the lusty "212," she's still something of a curio, a situation that her new label, Universal, will most likely be looking to remedy.

It shouldn't be tough. Ms. Banks is effervescent and charming, and seemingly extremely malleable. Flexible in a different way is the Miami rapper Brianna Perry, who recently signed to Atlantic. Ms. Perry most resembles the main earlier model of female rap success, the sex kitten and gangster's moll poses honed by Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown in the mid-1990s. (There's even YouTube footage of Ms. Perry performing at a recent birthday party for Lil' Kim in Miami.)

But in the last year, as evinced on YouTube, Ms. Perry has evolved her style significantly, both aesthetically and musically. She unfurls her syllables in a deliberate, distinctive fashion and adapts her delivery well to the beat, evident especially on a string of freestyles over other people's songs: Rick Ross's "Stay Schemin'," Wale's "Slight Work" and, most impressive, Tyga's "Rack City."

What Ms. Perry is missing, though, is some of Nicki Minaj's effortlessness: she often appears to be scowling, even when the song calls for something softer. In a similar way Iggy Azalea, a white Australian woman, is stuck on one mood. She sounds as if she learned to rap for a part in a Movie of the Week: she's studied and awkward, an able imitator but not yet capable of more than that. Some of her rap moves come from Nicki Minaj, particularly the ways in which she tries to bend her voice into different shapes.

And Iggy Azalea, who signed with Interscope, has fully inhaled Nicki Minaj's skewed-Barbie aesthetic. Her videos are like small fashion shows, and Iggy Azalea, with her bottle-blonde hair and Jessica Rabbit manner, is inhabiting her character fully. (The white women of the new bunch appear to be playing with visuals the most; in addition to Iggy Azalea that includes Kreayshawn, who is frail as a rapper but as a carefully pieced together punk-chola doll, was one of last year's more intriguing arrivals.)

Iggy Azalea's look is a reminder that for all of Nicki Minaj's achievements, she's still done little to upend the traditional weight of masculinity in hip-hop. And traditional masculine rules still hold sway. Women are still mostly sex objects, and men mostly think of them in commodity terms. Nicki Minaj's music is full of reposts to this idea, but her image still often works within that old framework. Take as a counterexample Drake, Nicki Minaj's label mate, who offers a more emotionally complicate palate. But there has not been a flood of rappers looking to ride his coattails. His subtle challenges to the masculine ideal are more vexing to rap than Nicki Minaj's almost-complete rebranding of the female's potential.

The rapper who's best taken advantage of the sound that Drake pioneered - at least by rapping over his beats - is Angel Haze, a meditative young woman with a gift for starkly emotional verse. She's released a handful of mixtapes, the most recent of which, "King," features several revelatory performances over the beats from Drake songs including "Marvins Room," "Fall For Your Type" (a Jamie Foxx collaboration) and "Dreams Money Can Buy."

Because Nicki Minaj is such a malleable polyvalent talent, she's enabled a whole host of new styles, even an anti-Nicki. That would be Nitty Scott, MC, from Brooklyn, who sounds like a mid-'90s naturalist. In essence she strips away all of the things that Nicki Minaj went out of her way to accommodate: flash, gimmickry and the like. Nicki Minaj's ascent gives Nitty Scott something to push back against, which she seems to thrive on. She's a wry, melodious and enunciative rapper, the most classically minded of the bunch, but who still might be languishing unnoticed were she not a firm counterpoint to Nicki Minaj.

There are several more female rappers happy just for the extra attention that coming on the heels of Nicki Minaj has given them. After some time it's once again de rigueur for male rappers to have at least one female rapper in their extended crew: Lola Monroe of Wiz Khalifa's Taylor Gang (formerly the model Angel Lola Luv), or, from Waka Flocka Flame's 1017 Brick Squad, Cartier Kitten, whose "Project Gunplay" mixtape cover hilariously repurposes the "Project Runway" logo.

And Nicki Minaj's success has run parallel to a couple of other female rap mini-movements, including mainstream singers who have made rapping part of their act, like Kesha, Fergie or the intriguing rising British reality-show graduate Cher Lloyd, as well as independent hip-hop figures like the Shabazz Palaces affiliates and 1990s-bohemian revivalists THEESatisfaction.

But where Nicki Minaj's influence may be most vital is on artists who ordinarily have no business rapping, but who see in Nicki a relatable role model. Certainly Amy Heidemann of the grim cutesy-covers duo Karmin has some of Nicki's looseness in her approach. The actress Michelle Trachtenberg was a viral star when she posted video of herself rapping a Nicki song. Last year Taylor Swift was pronouncing Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass" as one of her favorite songs and rapping it for people. And most egregiously there's Katy Perry's recent butchering of "Paris," the neutered title of the Kanye West and Jay-Z hit. At this point Nicki Minaj is responsible for many children; some of them are bound to misbehave.

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BARELY a year and a half has passed since the release of "Pink Friday," the platinum debut album by Nicki Minaj, but her style is well honed. She's a sparkling rapper with a gift for comic accents and unexpected turns of phrase. She's a walking exaggeration, outsize in sound, personality and look.

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Fans of Pink Friday react to the album on the 10th year anniversary of its release

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Creators REACT To Nicki Minaj "Pink Friday" Album 10 Years Later!

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The Longevity of Pink Friday. A review/ analysis. 

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The Longevity of Pink Friday. A review/ analysis. 

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The Review of complex magazine analyze and reviews of how the success of Pink Friday rebirth female rap and change rap culture as we know it for the last ten years.

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Ten years ago, on Nov. 22, 2010, Nicki Minaj released her highly-anticipated debut studio album, Pink Friday. After inking a deal with Young Money in 2009 as the first female artist on the label, all eyes were on the New York rapper to see if she could keep the momentum going following her viral mixtapes, Beam Me Up Scotty, Sucka Free, and Playtime Is Over, plus a show-stopping verse on Kanye West's "Monster." She did not disappoint.

The album was an immediate success. Pink Friday debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart with 375,000 copies sold in its first week. It marked the second-highest debut week in the history of female hip-hop recording artists, with Lauryn Hill's Miseducation of Lauryn Hill moving 422,000 units in August 1998. And it had staying power, spending 14 consecutive weeks in the top 10 following its release. The project ended up being nominated for Best Rap Album at the 54th Grammy Awards in 2012 and was recognized as the Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album at the American Music Awards.

Hailing from Queens, New York, Onika Maraj was an artist with something to prove. Throughout the 13-song tracklist, she proved her pen game was not to be questioned, while showcasing her vulnerability and chameleonic abilities. After asserting her dominance on the ultra-confident intro, "I'm the Best," she followed with "Roman's Revenge," a song featuring none other than Slim Shady and Minaj's British alter-ego, Roman. The pair exhibited so much chemistry on the song that it's difficult to believe the collaboration almost didn't happen. During an interview on Rap Fix Live in 2010, Minaj recalled Eminem turning down the first song she sent him, saying he wanted something that felt more like him. After agreeing to the Swizz Beatz-produced beat, both Minaj and Em engaged in a friendly bar-for-bar session, encouraging one another to bring out their inner beasts.

"I remember, every time I wrote a verse to 'Roman's Revenge' and sent it to Eminem, he would send a new verse back," Minaj told in an interview for their 20th Anniversary issue. "It was competitive, it was fun."

It was on "Roman's Revenge" that Minaj proved she had staying power, laying a blueprint for the kind of effortless flows and catchy lyrics she'd lean on throughout her career. She also drew reference to ideas that encouraged a sense of nostalgia for '90s babies, tipping a hat to classic Disney movies. "I am not Jasmine, I am Aladdin/So far ahead, these bums is laggin'/See me in that new thing, bums is gaggin'/I'm startin' to feel like a dungeon dragon."

Minaj secured major features for her debut effort, a feat that was made even more impressive due to the fact that artists like Eminem, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and are selective about collaborating with newcomers. It said that high-caliber rappers respected Minaj's work ethic, her pen game, and recognized her potential from the start. Years later, she would grant the same opportunity to other artists breaking into the industry, like she did with Megan Thee Stallion last summer on "Hot Girl Summer" and with Pop Smoke on the "Welcome to the Party" remix.

On the Kanye West-assisted track, "Blazin," Nicki got a rematch with 'Ye following their iconic collaboration on "Monster." In comparison to the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy standout, where Minaj shined the brightest, she took a different approach and showcased her quick wordplay over the infectious beat, before transitioning into melodic, catchy lyrics on the hook. She ultimately shared the limelight with the Chicagoan, setting the tone of the song before 'Ye joined in on the second verse.

She also tapped Drake, who was newly signed to Young Money as well, for a verse on "Moment 4 Life." Throughout their friendship, the two played into the overall mystery that had fans wondering if the two were platonic or not. Drake even toyed with the idea on the track, rapping, "Fuck it, me and Nicki Nick gettin' married today/And all you bitches that be hatin' can catch a bouquet/Yeah, you a star in my eyes/You and all them white girls, party of five."

As Nicki Minaj pointed out in her Complex cover story back in 2014, it's important for women to be multifaceted. And it was immediately clear on tracks like "Save Me" that vulnerability and transparency were valuable facets of her skillset. The song told her listeners that not only can they expect club bangers, hard-hitting rap verses, and pop songs, but they can also trust Minaj to tell it how it really is.

On "Save Me," Nicki Minaj talks about feeling disconnected from herself and the world. She's asking for help from her loved ones and revealing she doesn't want to give up on herself while battling all the challenges life throws at a person. Although it was released in 2010, it still feels timely with the world's current social climate in 2020.

"The inspiration behind the single was for it to feel like a soundtrack," Minaj dished in a Pink Friday diaries segment at the time. "This song feels like a soundtrack to a movie. It paints a vivid picture of a girl who has it all but still feels very much alone. She's turned into a monster and pushed the one person who truly loved her away. She drives hundreds of miles, falls to her face sobbing, and begs him to save her."

From her bold outfits to her multi-colored wigs, Minaj oozed confidence that inspired others who were watching closely. Her belief in herself was at an all-time high, and it was evident when she performed "Did It On' em" at shows. On the Bangladesh-produced hit, Minaj once again showcased her quick, catchy wordplay, calling "bitches her son." In a similar fashion as "Roman's Revenge," she displayed the arrogance that fans love.

Minaj was one of few female rappers buzzing at the time, putting her in a unique position to speak candidly about relationships, from a perspective that fans could relate to. Listening to a song like "Right Thru Me," you can pick up on the way Minaj felt about being with someone who brings out all sides of her. On the Andrew "Drew Money" Thielk-produced track, she delivers calm verses before gliding into the chorus, singing about the different aspects of dating. Moments like these were important. Minaj set the expectation that her fans didn't have to turn to classic R&B singers to have an emotional moment while listening to music. There was a new comfort in knowing that the MC had her girls covered, and no topic would go untouched.

"Every woman is multifaceted," she told Complex in 2014. "Every woman has a switch, whether she's going to be maternal, whether she's going to be a man-eater, whether she has to kick ass, whether she has to be one of the boys, whether she has to show the guys that she's just as smart or smarter, she's just as talented or creative. Women suppress a lot of their sides."

On the outro, "Last Chance," Nicki proclaimed that her star was only going to continue rising. "Tell 'em that I'm gunnin' for the top, Forbes/Headed to the top, dot org," she rapped. And throughout Pink Friday, Nicki showed that for as well as she can rap, she can also create melodic songs and pop bangers. By blending genres, she proved she can't be boxed into one category, a trait she would carry for the rest of her career.

Pink Friday was only the beginning. It previewed to the mainstream world that Nicki Minaj was in it for the long haul. The album will be remembered as a project that took her from the No.1 draft pick to someone who could transform into a seasoned veteran. She could be heard finding herself and figuring out exactly what works for her in real-time. After landing on a personal formula of intertwining rap and singing, Minaj would carry it with her, proving, in a similar fashion to Drake, that she doesn't need to tap on anyone else to complete a song. She could do it all.

Since then, a long line of female rappers have stepped up to the plate to partake in an industry that was once male-dominated. Her unwavering success has inspired a generation of rappers who have followed in her footsteps. Just recently, new stars like Megan Thee Stallion, Mulatto, Rubi Rose, and more have spoken candidly about their admiration for Minaj's career, citing her as one of their biggest musical influences.

Although Nicki Minaj didn't rap much about sex on her debut, she would explore the topic in her ensuing projects. And Megan Thee Stallion, who openly spits about topics of that nature (perhaps most notably on her verse for "WAP") has been inspired by Minaj's growth over the years. Not only did the Queens MC motivate the newer artists to talk about sexual subjects, but she also encouraged women to embrace their curves.

On a more personal note, as someone who has been a fan of Minaj's music for many years, I can attest to the fact that Pink Friday encourages vulnerability. Throughout the album, Minaj played by her own rules and spoke candidly about relationship troubles, fear of not accomplishing her goals, and wanting to remain true to herself at all times. As a fellow New Yorker myself, there were moments in my life where I questioned if my story was as important as my male counterparts. After listening to this album, I realized that it was, and still is.

Going from Beam Me Up Scotty's "Still I Rise" to Pink Friday's "Here I Am," Nicki Minaj has shown me that it's okay not to have it all figured out. As women, there is often an unspoken pressure to have everything down pat and not speak on issues that are bothering us. During this time, from the outside looking in, it appeared that Minaj had the world in her hands. Her music, however, revealed that learning how to deal with all the challenges that come with being a woman is not an overnight process. It takes years of acceptance, learning, and unlearning. I've had to have tough conversations with myself in a similar way that Minaj did with herself on "Dear Old Nicki," in an effort to grow and reach a new level in life. Change can be challenging and scary. I'm grateful for Pink Friday showing me that it can be done.

One decade later, Nicki Minaj's debut album can still be picked apart for gems, laughs, and a break from reality, which is ultimately a testament to its lasting legacy. Pink Friday proved that Minaj is here to stay, and she doesn't need anything but her art to speak for itself.

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The Lasting Legacy of Nicki Minaj's 'Pink Friday'

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Ten years ago, on Nov. 22, 2010, Nicki Minaj released her highly-anticipated debut studio album, Pink Friday. After inking a deal with Young Money in 2009 as the first female artist on the label, all eyes were on the New York rapper to see if she could keep the momentum going following her viral mixtapes, Beam Me Up Scotty, Sucka Free, and Playtime Is Over, plus a show-stopping verse on Kanye West's "Monster."

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The documentary goes into depth of the artist personal life and personal struggles while in the middle of releasing her first album. The fans and many people get to seek a different side of the hip-hop sensation star Nicki Minaj

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Nicki Minaj - My Time Now (MTV Documentary) (Full)

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Review/ Message of each song on the album 

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Review/ Message of each song on the album 

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The scotsman review was released after a couple of weeks after the release of Pink Friday. The review gives praise her for doing a phenomenal job on the album.

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In trying to muscle in on the tween market, Nicki Minaj has neglected the most important part of her otherwise engaging act - writing songs

Nicki Minaj is a gleefully odd character, which makes her a potentially great pop star. But she is an inconsistent musician, putting her on a par with pop contemporaries such as Lady Gaga who are adept and occasionally even audacious visual artists yet produce disappointingly safe, generic tunes.

However, knowing that doesn't make this album any less frustrating.

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Minaj has drifted a long way from her hardcore hip-hop roots in the five years since she produced her first mixtape, deliberately toning down the overtly sexual content of her lyrics in a bid to appeal to young girls and muscling in on the teenage dream territory of Katy Perry with her elaborate wigs, false eyelashes and candy-coloured backdrops. Now she's got five-year-olds singing her songs on YouTube and becoming viral hits in their own right.

That's only part of her schtick but now that she has captured the pop market, she doesn't seem to know which way to jump and ends up throwing everything indiscriminately at the wall. Either that or she really has no clue how to make an album, because Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is way too long and carries an inexcusable amount of filler and is by turns confused, repetitive, bonkers and mediocre, but punctuated with flashes of that bright, dayglo persona and her actorly manipulation of her voice.

She exploits her multiple vocal personalities, and how, on opening track Roman Holiday - another outing for her gay English alter ego Roman Zolanski who first appeared on her debut. Zolanski is more Beyonce's Sasha Fierce than Janelle Monae's Cindi Mayweather, however, and her delivery here, in character as Roman's mother Martha, is pure My Fair Lady. She sounds demented even before she breaks into a mock-solemn rendition of O Come All You Faithful. In comparison with what lies in store later on the album, it's almost refreshing. But still - just say no, kids.

This oddball opening gambit is swiftly followed by a succession of credible, atmospheric hip-hop tracks, set to less-is-more foreboding electro backing. The narcotic buzzing of Come On A Cone makes attending a catwalk show (where she is "sitting next to Anna") sound like a dread enterprise and there is nowhere to hide on the unsettling slow jam of Beez In The Trap, as Minaj slowly picks the wings off her prey.

The robo-electro HOV Lane is another choice track, even though "I'm in the HOV lane and you're soul train" doesn't sound like such a vicious putdown. Has she ever watched a Soul Train line dance? That stuff is seriously cool.

Less than 20 minutes into an album which still has an hour to go (if you can last through the bonus tracks), Minaj has used up all her creative credit. The title track is a pretty standard diss number until guest rapper Lil Wayne shows up to paint it crazy. On I Am Your Leader Minaj is, ironically, relegated to backing vocalist while guests Cam'ron and Rick Ross dominate and, after giving a shout out to all the single mums in the ghetto, she also takes a back seat to Drake, Nas and Young Jeezy on Champion.

From here on in, the album flips character drastically, as Minaj lays the hip-hop to one side and stoops to churning out chart waffle such as the somnolent R&B pop of Right By My Side and the mechanical Sex In The Lounge, so lame it probably wouldn't even make the cut on a JLS album. Lil Wayne can't save this one. If anything, he drags it even lower.

None of the ensuing pop numbers has the irrepressible bounce of her bubblegum breakthrough hit Super Bass. Current single Starships is Haribo-flavoured dross, a kiddie-friendly confection with adult lyrics which alienates both markets.

Marilyn Monroe makes lazy reference to doomed celebrity and Beautiful Sinner is simply sub-Madonna (though even Madonna is sub-Madonna these days).

Minaj works her Caribbean roots on Pound The Alarm, a dancehall-flavoured raver, and the Eurobanger Whip It, both destined to blare from fairground rides forevermore, and form part of the seemingly endless, featureless landscape of David Guetta-style disposable dance pop which takes up far too much of the album. Must we fling this no-brainer banality at our pop kids?

Minaj is, at heart, an appealing character, and she may yet pull something special - or at least colourful - out of the bag for her T in The Park appearance.

But everything that made her one to watch in the first place is in danger of being airbrushed out by a market where success is measured in the number of Facebook likes and Twitter followers (she has 15 million and ten million respectively, if you care) rather than the joy of a great hip-pop single.

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Nicki Minaj is a gleefully odd character, which makes her a potentially great pop star. But she is an inconsistent musician, putting her on a par with pop contemporaries such as Lady Gaga who are adept and occasionally even audacious visual artists yet produce disappointingly safe, generic tunes.

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This review of Pitchfork talks bout the overall feel of the album and the the success of it.

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Over the past few years, Nicki Minaj has been one of the most exciting new voices in hip-hop. She's delivered a stream of song-stealing or song-saving guest verses, one dynamite mixtape ( Beam Me Up Scotty) and another, as good, unofficial one ( Barbie World), and generally displayed a swagger, unpredictability, and ferocity not heard from a female MC in years. Little of that, however, is on her long-awaited debut album, Pink Friday.

Minaj turned a lot of heads by coming out of the gate as a supremely confident, powerful MC in any one of the many guises she has chosen to inhabit. She's been most often bracketed with Lil' Kim, but those comparisons are more about image and sexuality than her music; at her best, Minaj on the mic is far closer to the free-spirited, without-a-net work of Missy Elliott. She displays a wide range of talents, stuffing her verses with complex internal rhymes, agile shifts in character and voice, and twisted, offbeat wordplay. Avoiding easy categorization on her mixtapes and guest verses, Minaj has played the coquette, the powerhouse, the lady, the diva, the rapper's rapper, the fembot, and the comedian. She's posed as Rihanna on the batshit awesome "Saxon", played the harajuku Barbie on "Beam Me Up Scotty", and shapeshifted into battle rapper mode on "Itty Bitty Piggy". And while she plays fast and loose with her past, her inclination to slip into a number of characters is the work of a creative former theater kid rather than a myth-making rapper.

And then her debut mainstream single, the rhythmically militaristic "Massive Attack", stiffed-- failing to chart on either the U.S. pop or rap charts. A few months later, the Annie Lennox-sampling hip-hop ballad "Your Love"-- a track she recorded a couple of years ago, most likely as a demo-- became an accidental hit, rising from an online leak to radio. And so now the woman who stole Kanye West's "Monster" from her all-star cohorts spends the bulk of her solo debut singing instead of rapping, leaning on recognizable and often corny 1980s/90s samples, and fronting a series of midtempo songs that inevitably lean into the string-led chorus so popular in R&B these days. In short: The most unpredictable voice in hip-hop decided she wanted to be like everyone else. Fortunately, even when she's aiming down the middle of the road, she's at least better than almost anyone else.

Minaj will get praise for her depth of skills, but this album isn't about showing off a range of talents-- it's about leaning on the ones that have worked in the marketplace. Oddly, she comes out of the gate with the album's most aggressive and most successful run of tracks, so livening up the clattering Swizz Beatz production "Roman's Revenge" that you're tempted to try to repeatedly get through it, even knowing that it contains Eminem recycling his Shady-circa-99 persona. The Bangladesh production "Did It on 'Em" is the record's best track, one of the few times Minaj goes to toe-to-toe with a huge beat. Minaj is upstaged by Drake and Kanye West on "Moment 4 Life" and "Blazin'", respectively, but these tracks-- plus the Rihanna collaboration "Fly" and the solo ballad "Save Me"-- are the best examples of what Pink Friday is rather than what many of us wanted it to be. That quartet of songs is proof that, even with commercial concessions, Minaj could have knocked out a great pop record, though one with anemic singles like "Check It Out" and "Right Thru Me" was never going to be it.

The gulf between Minaj's public persona and her music here reminds me of the criticism laid at the feet of Lady Gaga-- that for all of her high-culture namedropping, wearable art, and big event videos, Gaga's music rarely reflects the full range of her conceptual constructions. Gaga's emergence has certainly stylistically loosed up America's top female stars. Alongside the emergence of Minaj and Ke$ha, Rihanna, Katy Perry, and even the often conservative Beyoncé have enjoyed the license to be more flamboyant and delightfully cartoonish. In most cases, however, their music is in line with current fashion rather than setting it. (That said, the artist here closest in line with the the sound of today's top 40, Rihanna, is also the most consistently excellent; while it's Ke$ha, the one most forging her own path, who is irredeemably awful.) It's almost as if this generation of pop starlets is content to play outsized personalities at awards shows, photo shoots, and videos, yet stay within a sleepy comfort zone on record. Seeing Minaj fall into this rut is particularly disappointing.

The inclination here is to blame the label, but a song like "Dear Old Nicki" reads almost as a defense of what she's done on this album, and that's more disappointing than the actual record. (Perhaps not surprisingly, all four of the bonus tracks spread across different versions of the LP are rap songs; two of them-- "Blow Ya Mind" and "Muny"-- are among the best songs on the record.) A letter to her "old," unhinged, more restless persona, Minaj excuses the decisions she's made on this record because of the money she stands to make from it. "You was underground, and I was mainstream/ I live the life now, that we would daydream," Minaj the R&B star tells her more creative self. It's a deflating song on what, despite being a good modern pop album, is a depressing Nicki Minaj album.

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Over the past few years, Nicki Minaj has been one of the most exciting new voices in hip-hop. She's delivered a stream of song-stealing or song-saving guest verses, one dynamite mixtape ( Beam Me Up Scotty) and another, as good, unofficial one ( Barbie World), and generally displayed a swagger, unpredictability, and ferocity not heard from a female MC in years.

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The legendary album that is Pink Friday become one of the most sold albums by a female rapper in this decade selling around 367,045 copies it first week.

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The release of the 2010, album Pink Friday was ahead of it time. In a time where the music Industry was going moving towards the pop genre Pink Friday was able to have the shift change and intertwine the world of pop and  rap and make it as one. Also, making it one of the most influential albums of our time.