NICKI MINAJ

Queen

A FOURTH album is usually a turning point, a fork in an artist’s road. Will they transition into a heritage act, living on past hits? Will they pivot to a new sound? There are options. Unfortunately Queen tells us very little. What do we know? OK, Minaj is a boss. She is successful. She is saucy. She is as good as or better than young upstarts who want her throne. She is as good as or better than any of the bloke rappers out there. However, what’s important to her? Is she political at all? Does she have feelings about the state of her country in 2018? Did she protest in the Women’s March? She’s 35, so what matters to Minaj as a 30-something woman of colour living in America? Queen reveals nothing. Barbie Dreams gives her the hard beats she needs to deliver tough rhymes. It takes down pretty much every successful rapper out there. It’s funny. Minaj cracking wise and busting chops in a stuff-political-correctness way is great fun for four minutes, but ultimately it doesn’t move the needle much because we’ve heard it all before. The album is stuffed with hip-hop in its first half, before hitting the pop section with Bed and Ariana Grande, followed by Thought I Knew You with Weeknd. Blegh. I’m not against her pop ambition. It clearly works for her fans and helps sell zillions of records. It’s just not what I want to hear. Ever. And these tunes sounds so same-same as every other summertime jam released in the northern hemisphere at this time of year. Finally, 19 songs? Nah. This “everything and the kitchen sink’’ approach has to stop.