Nicki Minaj review – rap's queen reaches end of her reign
Since releasing last year’s Queen, Nicki Minaj’s reign as one of America’s ruling rap monarchs has turned a bit Joffrey from Game of Thrones. Her much-delayed fourth studio album was mired in the type of chaos typical of the HBO drama’s tempestuous teen royal. Between frequent assaults on critics and fellow artists on social media, the star announced and then cancelled a North American tour with Future before embarking on an ill-fated run of European dates. When tonight’s show begins with the MC atop a giant, glittering winged pegasus to the piano plod of her Labrinth collaboration Majesty, it’s almost a surprise: two other shows on this tour have been pulled already, including one in Bordeaux, where angry fans erupted in chants for rival rapper Cardi B after Minaj cancelled minutes before stage time, citing “technical reasons”.
You wonder how it came to this: how a razor-tongued talent once among rap’s most revered names, able to straddle gleaming pop on smashes such as Starships and snarling trap on tracks such as Only, stooped to offering two-for-one tickets to her first London show in years, due to slow sales. Tonight’s disjointed drag of a performance suggests it is not all down to the bad PR of her beef with Cardi, US rap’s new national treasure. After a blistering first 15 minutes that peaks with fiery female masturbation anthem Feeling Myself, things starts to sag as her neonpink, chameleonic hip-pop gives way to lengthy sections devoted to ballads like Grand Piano, mimed from behind a veil, and EDM experiments such as Pound the Alarm.
When she does interact with the crowd, it is to share Mary Poppinslike impressions of Londoners, enquire about which men present have “a giant dick”, and fire subtle barbs at a certain Bronx-born nemesis (“Any of you know someone who copies everything you do all the time?”). At her best, hits such as Anaconda fizz like popping candy, delivered while she is slouched on the ground with a wild-eyed grin like Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat by way of Cleopatra. But by the time she closes with 2011’s Super Bass to a depleting room (she went on stage an hour late, and last trains beckon), the sugar rush has long since faded.