Let’s begin with the fact that a debut album is no easy task, especially for someone like Nicki who has been riding on a crazy hype for the last two years, slam dunked the award shows without an actual album, who has broke record after record, like being the first female rapper with 7 entries on Billboard Hot 100, being the first female emcee to have the top rap song on Billboard, being the first female to ever enter MTV’s “Top 10 MC’s List” among others. She has been on everyone’s lips and has been featured on all major collabos that has been released the past year from Trina, Trey Songz, Ludacris, Usher, Diddy, Mariah Carey, Lil Wayne, Rihanna, Drake, Sean Kingston, Gyptian, Gucci Mane, KanYe West, M.I.A., Jay Sean, Keyshia Cole and the list goes on and on.

Nicki has surely paved the way for women in hip hop but with that comes a price, there’s a heavy boulder on her shoulders with this debut, possible the heaviest one the carry for all the people releasing albums this year, cause if she fails, would the world be ready to push another female rapper forward the same way in the next coming five years? Would someone take the risk to give the Lore’ls or LoLa Monroes out there a major deal? Probably (and sadly) not and we would experience another backlash for women and rap, once again.

The album opens with ‘I’m the Best’, Nicki’s chronicle journey from underground rapper to border-line mainstream artist, which takes off back in 2007 when Nicki came out with the “Playtime’s Over” mixtape and “The Come Up DVD”, you know when she rapped over Lil’ Mama’s ‘Lipstick’ with her ‘Watchaknow About Me?’ and over Lil’ Kim’s ‘The Jump Off‘ and her journey and struggle towards the top via Cash Money, Young Money and Sylvia Rhone’s Universal. How she switched her style to gain the money and fans, how she fighting for the girls an the line “So all my bad bitches I can see your halo” over the Kane Beatz signed production gives me goosebumps for real. Nicki also ties her old self with her “new” one in ‘Dear Old Nicki’, an answer to the people (and herself) missing the old Nicki from back in the day, prior the Barbie-wave and huge success.

Yes, the top is lonely and also comes with hate from former queens. Lil’ Kim had been up Nicki’s ass for months until the reply (now confirmed during an interview Nicki did with Angie Martinez on Hot 97 during the past weekend) finally came a couple of weeks ago with the absolutely mental ‘Roman’s Revenge’ on the best production Swizz Beatz has ever made. A reply where Nicki transforms into her rude and crazy character Roman Zolanski and together with Eminem’s alter ego Slim Shady they give Lil’ Kim a good run for her money and this track is one of my top fives faves off the album, no doubt.

And the wrath of Nicki Minaj doesn’t end there, far from, no on ‘Did It on ‘Em’ (produced by Bangladesh and another one of the top five songs), Nicki literary takes a huge shit on the rest of the competition:

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“Pink Friday” can be seen as different segment of songs. One of the groups is the collaborations where we find Drake on the T-Minus-produced ‘Moment 4 Life’, the J.R. Rotem-produced Rihanna collabo ‘Fly’ and of course, ‘Blazin’ featuring KanYe West with Drew Money behind the production steez. All these three collaborations are absolutely stellar and all would easily work as individual singles and last night during the AMA’s Nicki revealed that ‘Moment 4 Life’ will be an upcoming single:

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Then, as another block we have the actual already released singles, ‘Right Thru Me’, ‘Your Love’ and ‘Check It Out’ ft. Will.I.Am. All very mellow and commercial. Two of them samples popular songs from the 1980′s, from mine and Nicki’s childhood. ‘Check It Out’ samples Buggles old ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ and ‘Your Love’ Annie Lennox ‘No More I Love You’s’ and “Pink Friday” is a true child of the 1980′s. It’s filled with references to the music that was popular when we, the generation X grew up. But Nicki updates all these classic to something contemporary and new for the generations that comes after X, like Madonna’s material girls and strive for money in the lovely and catchy ‘Muny’ produced by Oak and Papa Justifi:

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Best is possible the newest interpretation of the Big Pink’s huge ‘Dominoes’ from last year in hers and J.R. Rotem’s ‘Girls Falls Like Dominoes’, which sort of is an ode to all her female fans and conquering heroines. A full force womance anthem and the perfect finish which wraps the album up beautifully:

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So, are there any bad tracks then? Yes a couple, it’s not Nicki’s fault on ‘Last Chance’ thou, it’s the production by Drew Money and feature from Natasha Bedingfield who ruins it for me as it sounds just like it was left over from Lil Wayne’s “Rebirth” and I’ve never been a crazy fan of ‘Blow Ya Mind’ either, it’s just way too messy to make any sense. But on the other hand, another of the upcoming singles ‘Save Me’ makes up for that big time, simply love the production even thou I miss something from Chase & Status, just picture what a great match it would have been after the ‘Saxon/Mad House’-thing from Rihanna’s “Rated R” last year.

I’ve seen a couple of lukewarm reviews of the album from some male journalists and well, I can understand why they’re not buying fully into this Barbie-concept and highly commercial album, esp. not in the standard edition (13 tracks) as the bonus tracks (which makes the grand total of 19 if you include the iTunes bonus and Best Buy-bonuses: the Swizz Beatz-produced ‘Catch Me’ & ‘Wave Ya Hand’) makes the album whole and complete. Male journalists in their mid 30′s/40′s are also not the primal target audience, “Pink Friday” is for the girls, the barbz and the fellow sisters. For good and bad, while Lil’ Kim snatched the men with her sexual explicit raps, Nicki traps them with her talent (and assets, like the epic Men’s Magazine shoot) but the lyrical content and the album message is for the girls. It’s made for the girls with love, the love from a big sister and the love from a fellow sister.

And the world today needs an agitator like Nicki Minaj, her millions of minions are proof enough. Lil Kim and Foxy had Biggie and Jay-Z, Nicki exists on her own. She’s her own subject and that may also the reason why Lil Wayne is not present on “Pink Friday” at all. Perhaps a feature from Weezy would have been the final piece that is missing from the puzzle to call “Pink Friday” a masterpiece, but it’s minor, I can definitely live without it. I rather see Nicki stand on her own two feet and according to me, she stands tall. Without Lil’ Kim, Missy Elliott and Foxy Brown there would be no Nicki but she switches up everything they did back in the 1990′s to the max with her own interpretation and real life stories and
manage the task that no female rapper has done before, be a sex kitten the same time while she’s rapping about actual content. Nicki is not either or, she’s everything and both. She’s the role model I hope my future children could have. You know, someone who tells the kids they should stay in school, someone who dares to be her cooked out self, someone who turns Black Friday into Pink for breast cancer awareness.

But well, some might say that “Pink Friday” is just as plastic and glitzy like Nicki’s Barbie-thing. And yes, it might be highly commercial and sellable but bashing her just for the reason that she wants to earn and earns money? I wonder when the same critique will be forwarded to KanYe West, Diddy Pops and the rest of the lot… “Pink Friday” could easily be the album of the year, no question, but I can understand why some might think it’s playing a bit too much on the safe side even if it’s slightly psych ward from time to time.

But one thing stands clear, Nicki is a unique voice in the modern hip hop flora with her diversity and ability to jump on almost everything and hopefully she’s already moved onto the next album, which will hopefully showcase more of her insane voice control and switch ups as well as her charisma and vocal style. Hopefully she will give more room for Roman Zolanski and his mother Martha and the rest of her character library but I fully get why “Pink Friday” is the real Onika on the mic most of the times.

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Yes, unlike my male dittos I dare to rate “Pink Friday” five hearts out of five possible. Why? Well, Nicki’s in a league of her own, the _only_ one playing the field at the same pace at the moment might be KanYe West, and with that I have to end this with a line from Nicki’s verse on KanYes ‘Monster’: “You could be the King but watch the Queen conquer” and it’s like that famous wall writing “Sometimes the King is a woman” by New York City Street Artist James De La Vega. Nicki is the King and Queen (and the ninja, the boss, the Harajuku Barbie, Cookie, Roman Zolanski, Martha etc.) in one, all hail Nicki Minaj.