Hip-Pop?

I really enjoyed this blog post by DJ Louie XIV at the Huffington Post yesterday. He basically expresses his disappointment at the lack of popular female rappers these days using Nicki Minaj as an example saying that she seems content with releasing more pop-style music (he refers to it as "yet another shaded rendition of 'California Tik Tok on Last Friday Night's Domino') instead of hip-hop.

It's funny because I was listening to Young Money the other day and thinking the same thing. The first time I heard Nicki Minaj was on "Bedrock" and I remember thinking that she more than held on her own that track with guys like Lil Wayne and Drake and wanting to find out who she was. Now that she's seemingly crossed over to the pop side (it seems pretty clear that at this point she has more in common with Katy Perry than Eve), I sometimes forget that she was even on that song.

It's definitely not because a lack of talent. She's exceptional with her rhymes and flows and she's proved it time and time again. DJ Louie mentions "Did It On 'Em" as an example, and I think that's still my favorite Nicki song (actually hearing it for the first time on the radio was the reason I went and got her album).

As much as I hate to do it...I think I'd have to blame Taylor Swift for this. In my mind, "Superbass" was the breaking point where Nicki really started to turn pop, and of course it was Taylor who Nicki credits for introducing that song to a larger audience (of mostly adolescent white girls). Since then, it's been lighthearted stuff like "Starships" and little girls singing her songs on Ellen.

As a sidenote, can you imagine Sophie Grace doing...just about any other Nicki Minaj song? It would go from cutely innocent to wildly inappropriate pretty quickly.

Granted, I have no idea what Nicki's new album is going to sound like. Who knows, maybe "Starships" is as pop as it gets and the rest of the tracks are pure hip-hop. But I doubt it. I think Nicki's smart enough to know she's found a niche where she can be pretty successful. And I'm not saying her songs aren't good, just different. Good for her, but if she continues going in this direction I think it's a pretty significant loss for the hip hop community.