N icki Minaj could have been a feminist icon. She became known – and by known I mean world famous – with rap songs in the early 2010s, when it was still not a given that women would play in this genre, let alone become hugely celebrated stars.
She paved the way for more and more excellent women in rap – who knows where Cardi B, Lil Simz or Doechii would be today if Nicki Minaj hadn’t done her thing in 2010. Minaj is considered the most musically and commercially successful rapper of all time due to the sheer volumes, the music she sells and the masses of endorsement deals and money she accrues. As the Queen of Rap.
She is no longer that. Since her joint appearance with US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, she has earned a new title – the Queen of Cringe.
There is no other way to describe the feeling you inevitably get when you watch the videos from this event. Nicki Minaj stands in front of a lectern, her hair straight and neatly parted, her top buttoned up, in a white fur jacket. The woman who used to confidently provoke with pink hair and revealing outfits suddenly appears conservative. Behind her stands the President, grinning somewhat stupidly.
Fans are stunned
“I’m probably the president’s biggest fan and that’s not going to change,” she says. “We won’t let them bully him.” It sounds like Minaj is protecting a child who is being bullied at school. Immediately afterwards, she says that the president has a lot of “power” behind him – which in this context can also be translated as “violence”. How telling.
Because Donald Trump is not a teased schoolboy, even if he sometimes acts like one. He is the most powerful man in the world and has the most powerful army on the planet. These days, his immigration authorities are shooting peaceful people on the street who stand in their way.
The fact that Nicki Minaj is supporting him during this time is rightly shocking to many. Because she herself came to the USA at the age of five as the child of illegal immigrants and, during Donald Trump’s first term in office, she publicly spoke out against immigrant children being separated from their parents.
She posted on Instagram in 2018: “I can’t imagine how horrible it must be to be in a strange place and separated from my parents at the age of 5. This scares me very much. Please stop it.”
Nicki Minaj für Nicki Minaj
To Minaj’s credit, Wednesday’s event with Trump was also about children. Because what was celebrated there were the newly launched “TrumpAccounts” – a program that is intended to provide every newborn child in the USA with an account with $1,000. Minaj announced that she would donate generously to this cause, although economists have already warned that it will probably disproportionately benefit children who already come from wealthy families.
So if Minaj really cared about equal opportunities, she could simply use her wealth to set up her own programs – instead of defending a president whose actions are obviously driven by his own profit and that of his billionaire friends.
But it’s probably just Nicki Minaj about Nicki Minaj. Maybe she was never a feminist icon, but just wanted to be a rap star. Maybe the violent deportations don’t bother her as long as she isn’t affected by it herself. And perhaps she also finds it quite pleasant not to have to fear increased taxes under Trump – which could actually be used to combat inequality of opportunity in the long term.
A few weeks ago, Nicki Minaj sat on a stage with Erika Kirk – the widow of right-wing opinion maker Charlie Kirk. She elegantly ended a rant against trans people with an expression that is regularly used to trivialize sexual assault by men: “Boys will be boys.”
That and this embarrassing support appearance for Donald Trump, who himself has been convicted of sexual abuse, clearly show that Nicki Minaj is betraying the feminism that she promoted in rap, as well as the genre itself, whose artists have always seen themselves as the voice of the oppressed. But above all Nicki Minaj reveals the womenqueers and migrant people in their fan base. This is not only cringe, but unfortunately also quite sad.