Conclusion from Google Image Search: she really likes sticking her tongue out an awful lot…
[Myspace]
[6.64]
Matt Cibula: If you had told me when I was young that the future would sound like this I would have exploded.
[9]
Alex Macpherson: Nicki Minaj may or may not go on to fill the Lil’ Kim-sized vacancy for a major league female rapper, but the growing hype around the new Young Money signing is more than justified. She’s sharp, she’s funny, she rattles off did-she-just-say-that lines with a casual brilliance and her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape sits alongside Pill’s 4180: The Prescription as one of 2009’s finest. “I Get Crazy” doesn’t contain Minaj’s most out-there humour or rewindable lines, and while the “A Milli” knock-off beat bangs as a mixtape intro, it leans too obviously on the “female Wayne” angle as a promotional tactic. What it does showcase, though, is Minaj’s charisma and versatility. Her voice is clipped and precise, which makes it sound like she’s rapping through disapprovingly pursed lips; it means she can be as playful and zany as she wants without ever losing a fundamental contemptuous swagger.
[8]
Spencer Ackerman: Oh God, make her shut up. Then out of nowhere: Wayne on guitar, spitting a rock-n-roll-influenced verse that’s both bad and senseless: “I’m fly/I eat my bird shit/ And I’m crazy/ crazy ’bout yurrr bitch.” And still this is more interesting than Nicki Minaj. The recession must not be so bad if she’s able to make music.
[3]
Chuck Eddy: Nicki’s “Beam Me Up Scotty” is one of my favorite singles of the year, an easy shoo-in for my year-end top ten, but for some reason I’ve been having the hardest time getting it through my skull that she’s from South Jamaica, Queens rather than the other Jamaica, or even London. Guess it’s just hard to believe that an American girl rapper could still sound so much fun in 2009, since no other ones seem to (well, maybe Kid Sister comes close).
[8]
Alex Ostroff: She dabbles in Jamaican patois and barks like a dog, has sex in the Oval Office and padded rooms, and rhymes mangos/bangles/ankles/star-spangled. Why not? The hook is a third-generation A Milli rip (tho). Plus, Wayne shows up just long enough to tell you to eat his birdshit and play an unnecessary guitar solo, holding Nicki back from a [10]. Still, Nicki’s gleeful insanity reminds me far more of what I used to love about Wayne than anything off his forthcoming rock album is likely to.
[8]
Martin Skidmore: I like her a lot, and I like the production, but the guest interjection rather mars it.
[6]
Anthony Easton: There is something really angular about how they fit together, sharp enough to poke yr eye out.
[6]
Al Shipley: I never thought I’d actually like a song where Wayne incompetently paws at a guitar and does his whole rock star schtick. But I have to admit that the way that that little bit of tweedling and feedback precedes one of his most hoarse and unhinged guest verses to date is kind of awesome.
[6]
Michaelangelo Matos: I’ll take Weezy’s verse over his shitty guitar solo, if in fact it’s his — why else would they allow it on there? And I’ll take Minaj’s “crazy language” over both. Not to mention her wonderfully forthright proposition of Barack Obama. “Crazy” means “horny,” right?
[7]
Jordan Sargent: At first blush you’d think that the beat here, with its mile-a-second jerk-style vocal-sampling, would be the undisputed star, but she more than keeps up admirably, adapting the sly and confident word-slurring flow that Wayne locks into when he’s really gripping a beat. Minaj’s selling point has always been her Lil Kim-esque swagger, and if she keeps making songs as singular as this, she just might be able to pick up where Kim left off.
[8]
Doug Robertson: Of course, in real life anyone who goes to great lengths to tell you just how ‘crazy’ they are is usually just an annoying, attention seeking, irritating fool, but in music real world rules don’t apply and, while Nicki is clearly desperate for your attention, she damned well deserves it as well.
[8]
John Seroff: 80% of the ‘I Get Money’ hook + negative 44% sub-Janelle Monae rapping + maybe 30 bars of next-level bad preschool lyrics (“I keep three hos but don’t call me Santa”/”I mean my name ring bells like Tinky”) + 1 ridiculously lousy Lil’ Wayne verse + approximately 15 seconds of what I assume to be Wayne’s terrible guitar solo = an inauspicious debut. Nicki has the body and the connections to stick around for a minute; here’s hoping her learning curve isn’t as steep as the one beginning at her lower back.
[2]
Mordechai Shinefield: Even with a couple of dated references (how long has she been sitting on that Lewinsky/Sex in the Oval Office one?), Minaj and Lil Wayne sound like they’re having a blast. Lil Wayne is as crazy as he’s ever sounded (even schizo’ing out over his own insanity before going full avian; “I ain’t crazy / No yes I am,” right before, “I’m fly now / Eat my bird shit.”) and Minaj gets the best line when she rhymes “Got some bangles all over my ankles” to “Such a star they say I’m a star spangle,” and then compares herself to Hannah Montana. The differences between her and Hannah Montana could fill a book. For one, Nicki’s a hell of a lot more fun.
[8]
Martin Kavka: There will be no convincing people who don’t like this genre of music, who will see this as combining the charmlessness of rap with the headache-inducing capability of hard house. But there’s something to be said for a woman who comes on the scene saying “I am the rap Hannah Montana, fix your antenna.” What does it mean to proclaim yourself a secret character in a genre that has long valued realness? Or is Minaj suggesting that Miley Stewart is less real than Hannah Montana?
[6]