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What made Nicki Minaj stand out as a rapper early in her career was her flow, specifically her ability to morph into and out of vocal flourishes in the same song, or same verse. She was singular in this way — armed with a nesting doll of characters, all of them capable of enhancing a song. Not knowing what a listener might get from a Minaj verse or performance made the experience of hearing her thrilling, even if some of the songs faltered along the way. She was a scene stealer, most notably in Kanye West’s 2010 single “Monster,” but also in songs like Wale’s 2013 single “Clappers,” where she delivers a 40-second verse that easily topples everything that came before it. For these reasons, along with her vibrant, fearless, and colorful personality (and personas), Minaj ascended to the top of mainstream rap, and during her most prominent run, from about 2010 until now, she has been the lone woman at the top of the mountain. This isn’t as much Minaj’s fault as it is a failure of rap music’s imagination around gender. There are, and have been, several other women rapping, after all. But with the exception of Lauryn Hill and maybe Missy Elliott, Minaj has been the only woman rapper to achieve such widespread popularity, and — as we are seeing now with Cardi B — any other woman topping the charts is placed in direct competition with Minaj by rap writers and listeners alike. Thus, she reigned largely unchallenged for a run of chart-topping singles and platinum albums. Not only was her musical consistency lauded, but she also was an artist who knew how to use social media to her advantage, cultivating a fanbase — the Barbz — through Twitter and Instagram specifically. It has been the Barbz who, over the years, have built a wall of defense around her online, and supported her career relentlessly against those who might attempt to detract from her successes.

Amazon The album cover for Queen.

In the waning moments of summer, Minaj continues to remain in the forefront of rap news, but more clumsily than triumphantly. She released Queen, her fourth studio album, on August 10, almost a whole month after her originally announced release date. From the jump, interest in the album seemed tepid. None of the singles really stuck. (Only the first one, “Chun-Li,” managed to peak in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100). Media coverage of Minaj felt driven mainly by speculation over what conflicts she might or might not be engaging in, or how threatened she did or didn’t feel by Cardi B. Rap fans and onlookers suggested that her time was soon to be up, or that she was stagnating. Minaj didn’t exactly help matters during the album’s run-up: In early July, writer Wanna Thompson posted a tweet about Minaj’s creative direction, stating that she’d appreciate hearing more mature content from the rapper. Minaj caught wind of the tweets and directly DM’d the writer, in a harsh paragraph teeming with both personal insults and proclamations of what she viewed as mature work she’d produced. Thompson shared a screenshot of the DMs, which put her directly in the sights of Minaj fans, and Thompson eventually lost her job. Weeks later, Minaj took to Twitter to insist that Tracy Chapman’s inability to clear a sample was putting Queen in danger of further delays, claiming that she needed to get ahold of Chapman by any means necessary. This sent some of her fans to the Twitter and Instagram pages of a Tracy Chapman fan account, begging to connect the two artists. Finally, days after Queen saw the light of day, Billboard numbers had her falling just short of a No. 1 album. She took the No. 2 spot, second to Travis Scott’s Astroworld, which enjoyed its second consecutive week at No. 1. She responded with a series of tweets last Sunday afternoon, shortly after the numbers were released, claiming Scott’s merch bundles — fans could buy tour tickets, a copy of the album, and Astroworld apparel — were the reason he had stayed at No. 1. She suggested that Kylie Jenner had used her and Scott’s baby to help promote Scott’s tour and album, and bizarrely compared herself to Harriet Tubman. This past Thursday, she announced on her new Beats 1 radio show that she would be reading tweets from “haters” and calling them out by name; this just after asking her fans on Instagram to find out the name of the Billboard writer who’d dared to suggest that ticket sales for her now postponed tour were less than robust. It’s confusing to witness. It’s like we’re all watching someone laugh their way into sobs.

Nicholas Hunt / Getty Images Travis Scott at the VMAs.

Lost in all of this is that Queen is a mostly solid album by a rapper who many — for some reason — consider well past her prime. The stakes for this album felt high, like a statement needed to be made about Nicki’s ability to continue to dominate in a pop climate where she is no longer the only chart-topping woman in rap. Queen reestablishes what Minaj does well; she remains a clever, engaging MC, who can cast a pretty wide emotional net throughout an album. But we aren’t talking about Queen. After its initial release, we’re still talking about Minaj’s antics. Maybe this is all a part of mainstream music’s economy now, where the album release cycle is often competing with an equally fast-paced news cycle. The album becomes a vehicle, something that can briefly push an artist to the forefront of a pop-culture news cycle for a little while. The artist then is tasked with doing anything they can to hold on to the moment, in hopes that such behavior might sell a few albums, or at least grant some infamy to their name. For some artists, this is a simple routine: interviews, rounds on the late-night shows, maybe a magazine cover. For Minaj, this has meant a rash of behavior which feels like she’s on edge and out of ideas. Yes, she is still a central conversation point as her album finishes its second full week of being out, but the topic of conversation is her, and not what Queen has to offer musically or lyrically. It is almost as if she didn’t trust the album itself to be interesting enough, and so she’s allowed herself to be the album cycle, an instrument of chaos which keeps playing. The way music is released and consumed has shifted since even 2010, when Minaj released her first album, Pink Friday. The physical album was already giving way to streaming services in 2010. Downloaded singles accounted for 67.7% of music sales that year, while CD purchases only accounted for 14.5%. In 2017, downloaded singles jumped to 74.5% of all music sales. Though music sales in general have been on the rise since 2015, thanks to streaming, it’s a medium that still prioritizes the single over the album.

It is almost as if Nicki didn’t trust the album itself to be interesting enough.