#Pink Friday was a fun album like I'm not gonna stop listening to that shit over this while there are dudes that made excuses for R. Kelly

[runthepockets]

Thank you for including Nicki in your rap post. Many people have tried to write her off for years and downplay her achievements due to her personal life

Yeah, I saw someone trying to do that on my post (RE: her marrying that pedophile and getting her brother out of jail for rape). While I don't think those actions are in good taste, I don't think that's enough to get me to write off her legacy.

She was the first foot in the door of women in mainstream Rap music that felt authentic and individual (besides, like, Lauryn Hill, who couldn't handle the spotlight at such a young age and who turned to a life as a private citizen after all the shit she was dealing with while working on Miseducation.) Unlike women rappers of past, she didn't have to do the whole "female mafioso" thing that a lot of women had pushed onto them by their clueless male counterparts, she didn't have to play into the role of dating / being seen attractive by a powerful man in the music industry to get signed on and she didn't have to write hypersexual lyrics that didn't reflect her in order to get those men to sign on her work.

She was allowed to wear bright clothes and make goofy alter egos and make silly voices and be fun and independent and talk about love and sex from a black feminine perspective. She brought a potent and unique sense of charm and vibrancy to the world of Hip Hop due to her Carribean upbringing, the likes of which are honestly unspoken heroes in the culture (Wyclef Jean brought us Carribean Hip Hop fusion before we even knew we were ready for it, Foxy Brown's assertive and fiesty rhymes and style were huge inspirations on both Nicki and Megan Thee Stallion, Busta Rhymes is....just fucking look at and listen to the guy, man, he's been ahead of the curb from the jump.) She was the first female rapper I can really remember girls my age getting latched onto and getting excited over.

So, yeah. Again, while I don't think the men she surrounds herself with are ideal, it's just not enough for me to write her out of the culture or our history. Hip Hop has always been a boys club, she was the first to change that. In any other subculture, she would be untouchable, or at least would have people talking about her with more sympathy and nuance. Why the sympathy stops for her idk.