Dear Nicki Minaj:
I’m supposed to be mad at you. Because of the whole Barbie thing. I don’t know if you know this, but Ruth Handler created Barbie for Mattel about 50 years ago. She was based on Lily, a blond European comic strip character with, shall we say, loose morals. As a doll, Barbie prostituted herself for the multiple outfits, shoes, cars, houses and other accessories that parents would buy for their daughters.
A woman who compares herself to Barbie is a woman who desires to be purchased. A black woman who compares herself to Barbie is celebrating white standards of beauty in order to be bought. It’s objectifying, it supports patriarchy, it’s reminiscent of slavery, it’s problematic, and it’s working for you, ma.
Maybe it’s because no one can make the rumors about you hooking up with Weezy and Drake to get signed actually stick. Maybe it’s because your glam is hotter than anything designed for Barbie. Maybe it’s because even in your blond wigs, you look black unlike Barbie’s first black friend, Christie. Maybe it’s because you got ass Barbie can only dream of. Maybe it’s because this Barbie business is your business.
Times are hard. The black unemployment rate is 16%. One in seven Americans live in poverty. Gainful employment that pays a living wage is hard to find. You found it by being a Barbie. Congratulations. The more complex the package, the more there is to talk about, and people are talking about you, Nicki. We’ve been checking for your album over a year before it dropped.
Today, November 22, 2010, is your holiday. You’ve got a lipstick collabo with MAC, a partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world’s largest breast cancer .organization, a MTV documentary titled My Time Now, the Pink Friday album, and a pending tour. You are packaging yourself to be sold because that’s how the game is played. Men sell themselves all the time. When they’re successful we call them Donald Trump. When women do it, we call them dolls, puppets, pawns. You’re doing it right, but you’re wrong about one thing. Your time isn’t now. Your time is in the future. This is the beginning.
Turn hip pop on it’s head. Teach black girls how to be entrepreneurs—how to self promote guerilla style. Share as much as you feel comfortable about your childhood, your immigration, the domestic violence between your parents, your sexuality, your life in the industry with all those boys, and your round-the-way-girl attempts to figure these men out. How do they do that shit?
Barbie is your business. I understand that. Lil Kim understands that too, and that’s why she’s challenging you. I know you didn’t name any names in “Roman’s Revenge.” It has some clever lines, but Roman and Shady both hate women so I can’t give you any props on that. Just don’t go starting any mess. Your Sucka Free cover is Kim. She’s your godmother in the game even if she’s not acting like it. Think of giving everyone who comes at you, an opportunity to eat too. Savvy women parlay hateration into product that profits the major player and all the people on her team.
I listened to your interviews, I heard you rhyme, I read about that 360 deal. I know that your time is coming. What’s next? Your own label, your own school for girls, your own non-profit? I know you can do it, Nicki. The question is will you? I’ll only be mad if you stay a Barbie.
P.S.
By the way Lil Kim’s Pink Friday Mixtape is something you don’t want to mess with, really.
Just don’t pose in any more plastic boxes, okay?
http://twitter.com/#!/mghasspoken
Dr. Ebony Utley
The Woman with Ideas
Ebony A. Utley, Ph.D. is an expert in hip hop, race, and love relationships. Her forthcoming book, The Gangsta’s God: The Quest for Respectability in Hip Hop (Praeger, forthcoming), blends rap, religion, and urban African American history to reveal how a God-sanctioned gangsta identity empowers young black people facing declining economic opportunities.
November 22, 2010 at 12:48 pm
I’m a bit confused… Is this article suggesting that building the foundation for your career on selling T&A acceptable because that’s what is expected of any woman who wants to be successful in the hip hop industry or the entertainment industry as a whole? That people (most of all women) should support sexism, objectification, prostitution, and patriarchy because it is coming out of the mouth of a woman who has the potential to turn those negatives into a positive later on in her career?
I think this woman doctor is giving way to much credit to such a young woman and projecting her own choices of what she would do if she were in Nicki’s position.
Regardless of that, what about all of the damage being done to young and impressionable girls looking up to Nicki. I can already hear you now saying, it’s not here responsibility. But it is to an extent. Obviously Lil Kim played a huge role in Nicki’s career choice and persona she projects, even though Lil Kim and her supporters claimed it wasn’t her responsibility either.
You guys kill me. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t want to be treated fairly and as an equal and not be sexually harassed and objectified and then turn around and support the women who help to solidify the rationale behind the sexual harassment and objectification.
Why not support more women in the industry who built their careers on a positive foundation from the start, like MC Lyte (yes, she still makes music and is head of a record label in Los Angeles) or Queen Latifah (yes, she still makes music, and acts, and runs multiple entertainment businesses), or Angela Bassit, or Jada Pinkett-Smith (her production company with her husband just inked a major deal for putting out a series of movies, runs her own music company, runs a charity organization, and by outward appearances has a beautiful family). Why would you go to bat for a woman of Nicki’s character (the one she puts out for the world to see as I don’t know her personally) when you are well aware of the treatment women in the real world receive based on the portrayal of overly sexualized women in the entertainment industry especially in the hip hop industry.
Also, to assume that Nicki would be able to change her outward perception as she matured, is an extremely difficult thing to do and is highly unlikely to happen for a number of reasons. 1- the industry won’t let her because they make too much money off of the persona they invested in and helped her build. 2- she won’t want to because she makes and made too much money off the persona she created. 3- changing will mean at some point she will need to face her old persona and declare it in some negative light as to give reason for her change, otherwise why change? if it’s not broke then why fix it? if you’re old persona is good and imposes no harm to you or your fans, why change to a more toned down appearance, a less sexualized appearance, and less of a prostitute. None of those options will work for her or the industry and still retain her fan base and credibility and still rake in the big bucks. It’s impossible, ask any porn star that has tried to go legit. You are who you make yourself out to be and when you try to change that perception you will be subjected to and reap the consequences of the angry mob (the fans and/or critics). Just ask Britney Spears, Miley Cirus, and any of the other “good girls gone bad”. They can and will grow their fan base but not without being dragged through the brimstone first. I can’t recall a “bad girl going good” and being successful at it publicly.
February 9, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Very well written CJ. I know it was written a while back, but it’s good to see that Nikki successfully changed her image. She is a little cartoon campish, but it’s working for her. I like her music. In Kanye’s “Monster”, I believe she out shined he and Jay-Z. Now that’s saying something. I too thought she was headed for disaster imitating her idol Lil’ Kim, but as we all witnessed, she’s made a name for herself. Apart from Kim. I just hope she continues in the direction that she is headed. I admire this young girl’s tenacity and creativity.
November 22, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Nice one Doc.
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December 6, 2010 at 1:58 am
I applaud this writeup since it’s exactly how I feel. Nicki took something and made it her own. She got attention & she’s keeping it. I think she is the best role model yet for young girls and boys. She smart and she knows the business and I dont see it defeating her.
Thanks Doc!
January 4, 2011 at 9:33 am
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April 12, 2011 at 9:11 am
fat journal you latch on to
September 29, 2012 at 10:01 am
what you say about nicki minaj
October 22, 2012 at 3:57 pm
fuck you
June 28, 2011 at 2:23 am
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September 29, 2011 at 12:35 am
nicki your so cute love u nicki
December 14, 2011 at 8:47 am
Wow. Liked a lot of what I heard: our contemporary culture is indeed a complex net of influences, and it’s nice to hear that Dr. Utley is challenging students to think critically about pop culture. HOWEVER: to suggest, to state that “male and female” are terms that have nothing to do with biology, that are not biologically determined is just kooky and uninformed. While it is certainly true that our culture defines much about our gender roles, it is patently wrong to then assume that biology plays little or no role in our behaviours as men and women. This is a perspective that is more consistent with the women’s lib movement or black power movement of the 70s, than the far more nuanced view of human behavior we have developed in the 21st century (or at least, one might hope has developed).
January 1, 2012 at 10:29 am
To me, all that Barbie thing Nicki is doing is an integration of culture. I don’t have an issue with it as long as she doesn’t deny her African American roots. And quite frankly, her packaging is the same thing for any creative individual. Instead of just putting out creativity as is, some sort of spectacle has to be part of the process because corporate interest always gets in the way. The fault in this would lie on the heads over at Universal and Lil’ Wayne and the Williams brothers, not Nicki Minaj in my opinion.
August 25, 2012 at 4:46 am
omg. pppppllllleeeeaaaaassssseeeee listen i am your BIGGEST FAN! I LOV YOUR SONGS SO MUCH! yeah. i might be crazy. but i luv my nicki manaj!
September 29, 2012 at 10:00 am
hi i’m Bella 9 years old i just wanna say i’m your biggest fan sometimes i want to visit you and if you could visit north chiacgo marionjones that will be so nice nicki . i hope you get this email i now you don’t have time but please just read this i’m on my moms email but just read it your a great singer rapper and more i like the color pink on you i hope you like what i said please write me back nicki if you do’t write me back i will be so sad if you visit me i live at north chicago marion jones 2511 carver 60064.
November 11, 2012 at 10:31 am
hi
November 11, 2012 at 10:32 am
whats up
November 26, 2012 at 5:38 pm
DEAR NIKI MANJA I AM 10 YEARS OLD AND I AM YOUR BIGGEST FAN AND PRETTY LISTEN I LOVE YOUR SONGS AND YOU ARE MY FAVIORTE RAPPER AND SINGER IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME MY NUMBER IS 612-787-8140.I LOVE YOU .
December 22, 2012 at 12:58 pm
hi ever one on niki manija website my aunti just had a baby
December 22, 2012 at 1:01 pm
i cnt belive it is almost christmas i am going to hve so much fun please leave a commet and say what you are doing taniel
December 28, 2012 at 2:30 pm
So it’s beneath a *black* woman to dye her hair blonde and wear make up? This is some kind of Euro assault on blackness? The author of this article wears a process on her head, is this also some stab at ‘being black’? Go rock your natural roots, since that’s what life is all about. Being ‘real’ right? African Americans need to stop flirting with nonsense sociological tripe and start doing things based on interests and goals not what some ‘community’ thinks they should do.
If Ms. Minaj wants to act like a pop star and dress like an idiot, please don’t try read into it any deeper than you should. Have you been to Trinidad? Or the West Indies at all? Minaj is from there, and these are very sexually driven cultures. I lived in Jamaica and Trinidad, and these areas are as non-white as you can get. And the sexual exploitation of women is so rampant that you’d be hard pressed not to see a giant booty in tight short shorts on any given advertisement. Teenage pregnancy is not a rarity in these parts.
What kind of doctor are you? I’m guessing you hold some liberal arts degree nonsense. One of those easy undergraduate degrees with class averages over 85%. After grad i’m sure you realized you have no industry skills, so probably got a masters in sociology or something then a Ph.D and then wrote another useless sociological dissertation on some stupid far fetched notion that fibre optic cables and Prussian Field Marshals are all hidden variables against feminism and African Americans. Or how Barbie is damaging to young Chinese farm girls. Do us a favor, before you write your next book, um, just don’t write it actually.
December 29, 2012 at 7:19 pm
i think all the fan,s are good singer,s
December 29, 2012 at 7:21 pm
i think me and nicki shud go out
December 29, 2012 at 7:26 pm
i nicki im 9 year,s old and you sing the best song,s and i love you
March 29, 2013 at 3:20 pm
im ten honeybobo niki lies me not you girl friends just kidding
December 29, 2012 at 7:33 pm
girl i think you nickiminaj and you and ciara beoyca
December 29, 2012 at 7:35 pm
bye
February 22, 2013 at 4:42 pm
hi nicki minaj they saying bad things about u because they want to be you your awsome love u
March 29, 2013 at 3:14 pm
niki i havent been on your website for a very long time what up my lady
March 29, 2013 at 3:18 pm
niki call me now pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease my girl it taniel1!111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that was a lot exlmation marks peace
April 17, 2013 at 8:52 am
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May 18, 2013 at 1:24 pm
niki minija pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee write me back
May 11, 2014 at 10:12 am
Nicki minaj I think you need to think for a minute about this while Roman Holiday thing and that Roman is Satan I’m getting kind of worried about this whole mess. It’s bringing bad info on your little sister.
November 30, 2015 at 10:23 pm
It is ok Nicki Minaj is a adult she can make her own divisions she is successful so I know she will make the right choice 😄
January 29, 2015 at 7:49 pm
website
Dear Nicki Minaj: I’m supposed to be mad at you. Because of the whole Barbie thing.
November 30, 2015 at 9:41 pm
Hi Nicky manag I am your biggest fan I really like your singing when I fell sad music confronts me you might think I am weared Utah it is me I really would like you to meat me my name is Aeron Elizabeth Livingston
I hope I see you one day I would be so happy
If you can’t I would still be happy to talk to you even if we are far apart and the night is still young.
November 30, 2015 at 9:47 pm
I am sorry if I am annoying you a super star needs her sleep I am very sorry😢😞
November 30, 2015 at 9:54 pm
Every one needs to calm down Nicki Minaj needs her time I am not trying to be food . Sorry🙇