Nicki Minaj is the cover feature in the new issue of Nylon. I read the article this morning. It’s not the most insightful celebrity profile I’ve ever read, but there are some notable quotes. Nicki is promoting Barbershop: The Next Cut. She’s also been working on a television show based on her life. The takeaway from this piece is that she’s focusing on acting. She’s always wanted to be an actor. She acted in school. Like Lady Gaga, music just came first.
On her how, Nicki is also producing. All this in addition to the albums, the merchandising, the empire. They are all building empires. The word “boss” is dropped in here and indeed, Nicki has never seemed like the kind of artist who was being told what to do, what to say – by design:
“That’s what I’m most proud of right now. I want people to know that I have a brain. I want people to know, when they see my name, that I’m fully part of it, I’m fully passionate about it, I’m working behind the scenes on it, and that people take my opinion seriously.”
You know all the pearl-clutching that’s been happening about how women dress and how provocative the styling is, etc? Even when Nicki’s pushing her ass and tits out of a dress, did you ever think of her as stupid?
What’s also interesting to me is that Miley Cyrus is mentioned in the article, obviously in reference to “What’s good”. When Miley got back together with Liam Hemsworth, report after report followed about how she “changed” for him. He she had to “earn” his re-love. It makes me crazy, because it reminds me of all the times we’ve seen girls dumb themselves down, or reduce the volume on their assertiveness for the boys.
Nicki is dating Meek Mill. She talks about marrying him one day, having children with him. But instead of going on about how in love they are, and how he makes her feel, she also talks about how he’s had to grow – she actually did this in court, because he’s been in and out of jail:
(“He’s not perfect, but I can’t believe how much he’s changed,” she told a Philadelphia Common Pleas court judge on his behalf late last year. “He doesn’t have a lot of structure. He can be irresponsible. Since I’ve come into his life, I think I’ve been working on that a little bit.… He’s just getting accustomed to being an adult.”)
So, no, Nicki’s definitely not accommodating Meek by diminishing her own talents but…
When you are a boss, and you bring excellence and focus to your career, and you expect those working on your career to come with the same ethic, what’s that like in your personal life when you are planning a life with someone you have to mentor? And I don’t just mean life experience. I mean the experience of being a decent human being. I suppose you could apply the same question to My Obsession, and that might be why there has been so much fascination with that particular couple – because the age difference makes that gap obvious. But the idea of raising a man romantically…could you do it? Have you done it?
Click here to read more about Nicki in Nylon.
