The listening experience for Nicki Minaj’s album Queen, 2018 has been a declaration of being a female empowered voice. The confidence in full wonder, the mind, and the ability to command the rap game with versatility—four years between music consumption—is Nicki’s chance to establish herself again as one of the most powerful vivacious women in hip-hop through independence, dominance, sexuality, and resilience. With razor-sharp lyrical skills and performances, attention should be paid to exploring those qualities throughout the entirety of the album.
From the word go, Minaj spells out that Queen is a declaration of her independence. The album’s opening cut, “Ganja Burn,” reflects on her ascension to stardom and all the challenges she has been more than capable of handling with a stern warning to her competition: she is unflappable. It’s with lines like “They done went to witch doctors to bury the Barbie” that Minaj shows an invincibility against detractors who would seek to end her career and shows how she handles adversity, and this confidence continues throughout the rest of the record, filling out spaces with loud boasts and unapologetic swag.
Most liberating, though, is Minaj’s wholly unleashed sensuality, found in the likes of “Chun-Li” and “Good Form.” That she is so confident and unapologetic, she tears up the tracks, assuming a seamless union with her feminine, sexual power without stint. In “Chun-Li,” she takes on the personality of a strong video game character to further strengthen her self-image as a warrior who fought her way to the top. This bold self-representation acts out of line with societal norms, which do commonly try to limit the expressions of sexuality made by women within a male-dominated industry such as hip-hop.
Apart from the theme of sexuality and dominance, Queen also shows Minaj’s empowerment of and honour of other women. “Hard White” is reflective of her journey and strife, while “Majesty” with Eminem proves Minaj can step her game up and prove herself in the rap pecking order. Even in competitive settings, she displays bits important in female empowerment: tenacity, self-belief, and talent.
Nicki Minaj’s Queen goes beyond being just an album; it’s a declaration of self-importance and independence for a woman. Through powerful lyrical performances, she rips apart the mould on the theme of women in hip-hop; she alters stereotypes to honest claims of superiority in artistry as well as one who moves headstrong through their niche. According to Donna Berry Smith, *Queen* surpasses and instead celebrates the strength, pride, and intricacy of women so that making Nicki Minaj a contender for power as royalty in music makes total sense.
