dance party

love robyn & diplo

[review] Nicki Minaj, "Pink Friday"

Today is Pink Friday, but it's actually Tuesday, the day when albums "drop", and today Nicki Minaj's long awaited debut album Pink Friday dropped and OMIGOD, it is so good, you guys.

If you're not familiar with Nicki Minaj, clearly have not gotten crunk with me and I'm not sure if you inhabit the world at all. I am a huge Nicki fan because she's a talented badass lady with thick thighs and bangs- basically everything I aspire to be (I've got the thick thighs and thick bangs down, by the way).

Nicki has been "feat." with every artist today from the brilliant Lil Wayne to the deplorable Will.I.Am, but it is about goddamn time this sought after artist is doin' it for herself. I admit I was nervous before listening to Pink Friday; Nicki's featuring raps always left me wanting more from her, but I worried that she couldn't carry the weight of a full solo album.

I was wrong. Sorry for doubting you, girl!! With the first track off Pink Friday, "I'm the Best" Nicki explains exactly what her listeners are getting into: I hear the coming for me because the top is lonely/I'm fighting for the girls never thought they can win.

I am sure Pink Friday will be filed under "Hip Hop" because Nicki is a Black woman, but the album is, thank god, beyond classification. The beats are produced, sometimes overly so, and she samples everyone without sounding tired or redundant. She features everyone from Drake (her rumoured boo), to Kayne to Natasha Bedingfield (in the suprisingly good "Last Chance"). The only weak track is "Roman's Revenge" which is, surprise surprise, feat. Eminem.

I don't know if Nicki would call herself a feminist. But Nicki's pro-woman/IMA-FUCKIN-BADASS-BITCH lyrics is what sends my pop loving feminist heart aflutter. Nicki is mainstream but is spiting, I'm a woman/hear me roar and she's not messin'. The word "bitch" is Nicki's favorite and I fucking love her for it. I have a complicated relationship with the word "bitch" (which I will get into in a later post. HOLD YR BREATH). But Nicki doesn't use it the way that frat dudes use the word ( i.e.,"That bitch is so dumb, bro"), or the way some women use it to 'horizontally oppress' other women (i.e.,"That bitch stole my shoes/boyfriend"). She calls herself a bitch, calls girls she loves bitches, and the haters are bitches, too.

Aside from the very danceable/stomp-able beats, what I love about Pink Friday is that Nicki comes off incredibly sincere and just real. There are a couple of slow love jamz that are among my least favorite, but even when showing her rarer, vulnerable side, Nicki isn't sticking us with the same pop bullshit. From "Save Me", Ima bitch/ Ima monster/Yes Ima beast and I feast when I conquer/But I'm alone on my throne. Nicki's a bitch, but a bitch with feelings, and this bitch gets it and loves it.


Best traxxx: 1. "I'm the Best", "Did it on 'em", "Super Bass", "Your Love"

life feat. Rihanna

by a nelly fan, http://astralweeksplease.wordpress.com/

In "Just a Dream" Nelly sings, I was at the top/now it feels like I'm in the basement. Lately, I find myself relating to the St. Louis pop star's melancholy.

I think Nelly is talking about loosing his boo, which is sad, but not quite as sad as a liberal arts major with $30k in debt with no prospects of a sexy job or a good man.

I've avoided the feelings of hopelessness, angst, and anger felt by Our Generation for almost a full year after graduating. I am either very level-headed or always drunk. But the time has come for daily phone calls and weekly letters from my loans. I have become quite good at screening my phone calls and my roommates routinely toss the letters into our mail basket where they remain unopened. They are the paparazzi to my Lady Gaga- they will follow me until I pay them.

Trolling internet jobs sites, I am confronted with the fact that I don't master's degree and am not proficient in Excel. But doesn't this administrative job that I don't really want care that my Rhetoric of Reproductive Rights professor thought that I was really smart? And that my mom thinks I'm the most special 23 year old ever? I also won the leadership award in 4th grade and was voted Best Dressed in high school.

Our parents told us You Are Special and our teachers told us You Are Smart. Our friends told us You Are Loved and hot people told us You Are Hot. But it's a cruel joke! The sick, sad world doesn't care about my 40,000 dollar a year education...unless, of course, you are my college loans.

It's not my loans that keep me up at night in a non-sexy way. I know I will pay them back eventually. But what is haunting is what people have to do/sacrifice/grow sad & numb in order to pay college loans back.

I went to the bank last week and was overcome with paralyzing fear. It wasn't because I have $50 to my name (it's enough to buy eggs and beer and I'll have more money one day). I was waiting to deposit a check and the bank tellers- let's call them "Jenny" and "Mike"- filled me with a crippling fear I haven't felt since Sarah Palin entered our national consciousness in 2008.

Jenny wore a v-neck sweater and a half smile. She looked like she takes advantage of her work discount at Planet Fitness-she's seen her mom's thighs and the jiggly future is frightening. She watches romantic comedies on TBS and wonders if that guy from Saturday night will call her. Mike wears a wedding ring and a geometric pattern tie. He looks like he plays in an alt-rock band with his buddies on the weekend. His wife isn't crazy about the band and wants kids "soonish".

Jenny and Mike are The Middle; bored, pudgy, and watching Dancing with the Stars.

The Middle is were most end up. It's inevitable. You are expected to go to college but can't afford it, so you take out loans. You have to pay those loans back so you get a job. You probably need a car to get to your job and you might as well get married. You have kids and they need a house and somewhere between your daughter's braces and the house mortgage, you become "fiscally conservative". The Middle isn't terrible, it's just Life. Society accepts The Middle and advertises to it.

The Middle of course terrifies me. I am so scared that my genetically phat ass will automatically flatten after too much time on a swivel chair and too many kids. I am terrified that The Middle is just what happens because because I can't actually afford to Follow! My! Dreams! the way that my parents and my liberal arts education told me I could.

My friend Meredith contends that if we were going to 'sell out' we would have done it already. I'm not so sure. Is the only difference between me and an accountant acrylic nails and the fact that she knows that a Real Job is the only way to back back her loans?

In college I used to frolic and drink coffee with my friends. During the night we'd have dance parties in the basement with cheap beer and everyone we knew. I didn't know I was paying $30k (plus more. Thanks mom & dad! I'll pay you back one day!) for this beautiful, ignorant youth. I could afford to not care.

Our generation was told that we can do anything by parents who were the first to do kinda just that. In my happiest and drunkest moments, I stumble into believing in our confidence and youthfulness. I went to college! I am smart! I am owed! But then the sobering realities of This Economy and college loans and underemployment prove to ruin my hopeful buzz.

Is The Middle avoidable and our loans affordable? Or is it only Just a Dream? If you're drunk enough to believe the latter, put your hands up.

I heard a Katy Perry song and I liked it.

In "Firework" the brilliant Ms. Perry rhymes "boom" with "moon" and explores what it's like to be a bald child, a not skinny girl,and a gay tween model wanting to make out with another gay tween model. She also has CGI fireworks coming out of her boobs. Keep pumping out the disposable pop hits, Katie.

(If you want to hear another song, with, hey that's weird!, the same name, get happy here.)

nice to meet you.

"I'm dealing with this the same way I dealt with my own alcoholism and drug addiction...with lies and delusion"


Noted philosopher Jerri Blank once said, "I GOT SOMETHIN' TA SAY!"* The internet was invented as a place for information and porn, and later, as a catalyst for people to run their virtual mouths.

This blog is so that this b can run her mouth, push my feminist agenda and tell heartbreaking and other hilarious tales. I am a post-collegiate drunk without a "real job" and therefore have only time for you and the internet.

And if you weren't a Women's Studies major, I highly suggest Virgina Woolf's Room of One's Own. Shit will blow your mind.


*Jerri was most likely speaking of illegal drugs or ladies, and I more or less will be too.