“Nicki Minaj’s Grammy performance has angered the Catholic League”

LOL Y’ALL. And not even for the right reasons! Kind of surprised about the longevity of the knee-jerk “trainwreck” reactions to this, like, just think about it for a moment and it’s fairly radical. When (now ex) presidential candidates have families that run gay re-education camps, putting together a musical number that mocks both psychiatric and religious re-orientation for the broadest, safest audience is pretty subversive. Of course, not entirely sure how many people are clued into the transplay of Nicki’s gay alter-ego Roman (and the dress didn’t help), but creating a musical number around a failed anti-gay excorcism that flouts the chorus’ pharmaceutical prescription is a giant fuck you to shit like Santorum calling 7 million Prop 8 supporters “victims”. The schmaltziness of the chorus works too, because the diagnosis it sings is mid-last-century in a button-up T. I think Minaj falters by switching the “gay” from “I Feel Pretty” to “slay” because it would have been pointed, but this isn’t Pariah. What it is, though, is great. 

Side note: WOOOOO, STARSHIPS! Fuck the haters! Nicki’s a pop star and this is a pop song and it’s perfectly adapted to EDM-baiting radio trends and excels at that by dropping a rave-up that goes harder than Enter The Void, but without the gross aftertaste! Perhaps the content is superficial but Nicki’s desire to transcend the black female rapper box with broad spectrum pop dominance is not, and the song’s knowing flip of lil wayne (and i guess a lot of other rappers) “so high i could eat a star” trope is a nice bit of linkback. Also, given the mindfuck of a layered statement that her Grammy’s performance was, this is totally FINE.