“Pink Friday Reloaded” showcases both sides of Nicki this time around. She is finding new and inventive ways of expanding her brand with her music. Critics have not been too kind to her sophomore album, for example: At her best, Nicki Minaj is, line for line, one of the wittiest, most creative rappers working today, either male or female. Her many personas and voices fly through her songs with joyful abandon, and she seems to be having so much fun astonishing us,” the LA Times writes. “On the first half of her second album, Pink Friday … Roman Reloaded, the Trinidadian American rapper from New York City offers repeated evidence of her talents, and she delivers funny, biting, bawdy lines and rhyming couplets with apparent glee. … But then, after the ridiculousness that is ‘Sex in the Lounge’ (which sounds like a Lonely Island parody of an R. Kelly song, and, unsurprisingly, features Lil Wayne), the album drives off a cliff.”
There are some overall positive notices out there. In a near rave, Global Grind calls Reloaded “a rollercoaster ride of musical insanity, mesmerizing rap bars [and] catchy pop tracks that you may not want to like, but end up singing anyway.” Popdust awarded the set a three-and-a-half (out of four) star review, commenting that its “monstrous beats and [Nicki's] convincing delivery leave little room for rebuttal.”
Roman Reloaded which was released April 3rd is set to sell 200,000-250,000 copies in its first week and debut at #1. I am not the biggest fan of her music at times, however, I applaud her effort at trying to do things different. From a marketing stand point I totally get what she is doing.
The first 8 tracks are hard hitting hip hop joints that her fans that have been with her since the beginning will really appreciate. A few that stood out to me so far is “Beez in the Trap”, “Come on a Cone”,”I Am You Leader” both produced by HitBoy, and “Champion” with Nas. The other half of the cd is for the pop genre that she is breaking into. Some of them are ok, but I did hear a few that I know will be played on MTV constantly.
These last 2 years for Nicki have been crazy, and we have all had our say on some of the crazy stuff she does. I may not always agree with her artistically, but seeing women win is always a treat.
If you haven’t heard push play on the vid for a preview.
Did you purchase the new cd? Let us know what you think.
shout out to mtv and zhiphopcleveland
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