While similarities to her 2010 original may run only name-deep, this sample-heavy – and sometimes emotional – material certainly holds its own As its title suggests, Nicki Minaj‘s fifth album is a sequel to her exuberant 2010 debut ‘Pink Friday’. At times, she makes the connection clear: ‘Pink Friday Girls’, a pop-rap banger that samples Cyndi Lauper‘s ’80s anthem ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’, is so keen to recapture the giddy magic of ‘Super Bass’ that it name-checks the ‘Pink Friday’ hit. And when she raps “tried to play me but I shitted on ’em first” on ‘My Life’, it’s an unambiguous nod to ‘Did It On’em’, a scatalogical banger from that debut.
This time, though, Minaj raps about excremental revenge over a high-end sample from Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’ – a reminder that she is now a major player, not the industrious upstart who stole the show on Kanye West‘s ‘Monster’. Minaj also underlines her “queen of rap” status with a brace of ferocious brag tracks. When she raps “I don’t fuck with horses since Christopher Reeves” on ‘Red Ruby Da Sleeze’, it’s not just a crass reference to the riding injury that left the Superman actor paralysed from the neck down, but also, presumably, a dismissal of a rap rival with an equine-themed name. A catty rhetorical question on the same track – “All them botched face photos, why would you post those?” – could be aimed at any number of tweakment-loving peers. ‘Pink Friday 2’ also contains celebrations of Minaj’s sexual prowess: a line about “vanilla ice cream comin’ down my ass cheeks” on ‘Pink Birthday’ has nothing to do with Häagen-Dazs. But what makes this album really compelling are more vulnerable moments like ‘Last Time I Saw You’, a pop-R&B gem on which she grapples with her father’s death, and the reggae-flecked album closer ‘Just the Memories’. “I ‘member when I was the girl that everybody doubted / when every label turned me down, and then they laughed about it,” Minaj raps. It’s a welcome reminder that her rise wasn’t without setbacks. On the same track, she thanks her early collaborators Drake and Lil Wayne, both of whom make guest appearances elsewhere on the album. So, too, do Future, J.Cole and an uncredited SZA, who supplies a voice memo that opens the dancehall-flavoured ‘Needle’. Billie Eilish pops up too, courtesy of a sped-up sample from her 2018 single ‘When The Party’s Over’ that Minaj weaves into ‘Are You Gone Already?’ “You never got to meet Papa,” Minaj raps regretfully, addressing her young son who arrived shortly before her father was killed in a 2021 hit-and-run accident. Comprising 22 tracks that unfold over 70 minutes, ‘Pink Friday 2’ is probably too long, but Minaj paces it sharply. The first half pings between lean, mean hip-hop tracks and melancholy midtempos, while the second half contains a smattering of pop-rap cuts including the Rick James-sampling ‘Super Freaky Girl’. Minaj’s ability to impose herself on an instantly familiar sample also drives ‘Everybody’, a frantic banger built on Junior Senior’s 2002 novelty hit ‘Move Your Body’. It’s the quirkiest moment on an album where Minaj is generally more restrained than in the past. Here, she doesn’t play around with alter-egos quite as freely as on ‘Pink Friday’. Otherwise, though, ‘Pink Friday 2’ feels like a consolidation and refinement of everything Minaj can do – including dropping pop culture references that no other artist would think of. “Ducking ’em like Björk?” That’s surely a wink to the Icelandic musician’s infamous skirmish with a photographer. Thirteen years after ‘Pink Friday’, Nicki Minaj hasn’t lost her ability to catch us by surprise. Read More https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/nicki-minaj-pink-friday-2-review-tracklist-lyrics-3555287
0 Comments
The Australia-born, Berlin-based producer and DJ’s debut album ‘Mother’ is a result of personal breakthroughs. It’s a banging way to start 2024 n the world of dance music, timing is everything. Be it a huge remix, a summer festival smasher, capturing the zeitgeist or your track dropping appearance in a viral set – these can be seismic. It’s something Logic1000 – real name Samantha Poulter – knows well: in 2019, Four Tet dropped her breakthrough single ‘DJ Logic Please Forgive Me’ in his Coachella set; now, five years later, her debut album ‘Mother’ (March 22) arrives following the birth of her daughter and a mental health breakthrough. It is, truly, her time.
“After I had given birth, it felt more deliberate to want to create. I wanted to create something really seismic,” Poulter tells NME, huddled over a coffee in north London. When we meet in December, this is one of the first times she’s spoken about the record and its journey, a love letter to the house music scene that has kept her strong and creative throughout her life. It was recorded with her partner and longtime producer Tom McAllister in their Berlin home. “I wanted to prove to [our daughter] that I was working while she was around. This is something I can show to her when she’s older and say, ‘This is what mum and dad did’.” Though the timing within Poulter’s life is fortuitous, she insists it’s not a ‘concept’ record as such – not one song about sleep deprivation, you’ll notice. But even so, the lessons of parenthood seep into every song: this is a record full of bright-eyed wonder and of a creative duo entering a new phase of their relationship together. How else to explain opener ‘From Within’ and its sparkling soundscape, the confidence in ‘Heartbeat’’s groove or the pop-leaning collaborations with Rochelle Jordan (‘Promises’) and Kayla Blackmon (‘Self To Blame’). This album exists right at the moment it’s supposed to. Now, Poulter and ‘Mother’ join the latest wave of disparate electronic producers imbuing their work with personal narratives, however subtle or blatant. Sofia Kourtesis’ recent debut – ironically titled ‘Madres’ – fused familial stories into big beats, while Yaeji’s ‘With A Hammer’ processed internalised anger and relationship dynamics. It’ll be a richly rewarding return for fans who’ve followed Poulter’s rise through remixes for Christine and The Queens and Glass Animals, 2021’s superb EP ‘You’ve Got The Whole Night To Go’ and collaborations with rising stars like Yuné Pinku. She now stands at the epicentre of a bubbling creative universe. “When I entered motherhood I was like, ‘If I can create a baby, I can create something else that’s pretty awesome’,” she laughs, huddled in a puffer jacket the day after her NME Cover shoot. “It felt like I finally had confidence in myself.” Read More https://www.nme.com/features/the-cover/the-cover-logic1000-interview-mother-3565980 |
Karlito YaYoBringing You the Best Global Music Gossip. Archives
January 2024
Categories |