Nicki Minaj has had a tough year from the vicious rap beef with Remy Ma to her unsuccessful singles. The megastar, who at one point had the title for the best female rapper on lockdown, is going through a major crisis. She has had a good year as far as features go with the "Rake It Up," single by Yo Gotti, "Motorsport," by Migos and her most recent remix of A$AP Ferg's "Plain Jane."
As for herself, her singles have not managed to stick and for someone in her position, this is not normal. What could have possibly led Nicki Minaj to this point and is her time finally up?
The Remy Ma beef
At the beginning of the year, Remy Ma released a diss song towards Nicki Minaj titled "Shether," and that was a very brutal attack on Minaj's character. Rather than using social media to express herself, Remy Ma got at Minaj by spitting bars. Unfortunately, Minaj's first response was via Instagram which did not sit well with people. She eventually released a response titled "No Frauds," along with two other singles, "Changed It" and "Regret in Your Tears." To some, Minaj had a decent response and her singles were expected to take off, but the records did not hit.
According to Charlemagne the God and Joe Budden, there is no reason for a star of her magnitude to be in this position.
“The ‘No Frauds’ record had the iHeartRadio stimulus package… She had Wayne and Drake on the Record. That record didn’t go. She had another record with Wayne, that record didn’t go. She had a third record, I don’t even know what went wrong with that.” Charlemagne stated.
As the singles continued not to hit, Remy Ma's success increased.
Majority of hip-hop fans crowned Remy Ma as the winner of the beef and others acknowledged her success as well. For the first time in seven years, Minaj did not win the Bet Award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist and instead it was awarded to Remy Ma.
Is Cardi B taking over?
While many events took place at the Bet Awards, this was also the premiere of Cardi B's number one hit "Bodak Yellow." 2017 has been a great year for Cardi B.
She has appeared on major features like "No Limit," by G-Eazy featuring A$AP Rocky and even a crossover hit with "La Modelo," by Ozuna. As Cardi B continues to grow as an artist, people continue to compare and even consider her over Nicki Minaj.
Ever since "Bodak Yellow," reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, the never-ending conversation of beef between these two has been high. It all started from the behind the scene situation for the song "Motorsport," which was at first supposed to be Quavo and Minaj only. In Minaj's lyrics, we can hear her say, "Watch ya man/ you should watch ya mouth," and immediately fans believed it was targeted at Cardi B. It was eventually revealed by Cardi B, in fact, the verse we heard was not the verse Minaj originally had for the song.
So far neither party has acknowledged or confirmed that there is an issue between the two.
Will hip hop ever allow more than one female rapper to be around?
The question of whether fans are still checking for Nicki Minaj stems from this idea that there can only be one queen at a time. Before there was Minaj, the self-proclaimed queen was Lil Kim and as Minaj came there was a huge beef between the two. Now we have three active female rappers and people's only focus is to pin the three of them against one another. We have already seen the beef emerge between two of them and now it seems people cannot wait for another beef to emerge. It would be empowering if all three of these beautiful women could all be queens at the same time rather than a constant battle.
I am not ready to get Nicki Minaj out of here and fans should not be either. She has given us years of classic hits and for that, we should still believe in her. In 2018, she will be ready to show us what she can bring to the table.
