“Pink Friday 2” by Nicki Minaj

A welcome return to the skilled rapper's mixtape roots.

Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Daily Music Picks newsletter!

Today’s music pick is Nicki Minaj’s latest, a record that proves she can still more than hold her own as a rapper.

Genre: Hip-Hop,

Label: Young Money

Release Date: December 8, 2023

Vibe: 😲

Thirteen years after Pink Friday rocketed Nicki Minaj to pop superstardom, primarily on the back of hit single “Super Bass,” the brash Young Money rapper is back with a spiritual sequel that, if nothing else, proves she still has the chops to back up her swagger. Across a sample-heavy, 22-track opus, that part of her message never wavers—she’s back, and she means business.

Oddly enough, the record starts in a much more vulnerable place on “Are You Gone Already.” The haunting production gives way to Minaj grappling with the death of her father and the fact that her son, born in 2020, will never meet his grandfather in person. It’s a rare moment of public-facing clarity for an artist known for her various personas and purposely enigmatic online presence. Just as quickly as she opens that door, however, she slams it shut with stylistic aplomb on “Barbie Dangerous,” spitting bars like: “Name a rapper that can channel Big Poppa and push out Papa Bear/Ho, I’m mother of the year/Every summer, I come out to walk b*****s, make ’em disappear/But to me, it’s just another year.”

Those who enjoy top-tier samples in hip-hop will get their money’s worth here. Well-known snippets from Blondie, Cyndi Lauper, Rick James, Ludimee, and the Notorious B.I.G (to name just a few) seep into the crevices of the bass-heavy beats Minaj’s production team employs. The rapper effortlessly flexes her skills on the mic throughout, particularly on highlights like the braggadocious “Red Ruby Da Sleeze,” club banger “Everybody,” and the hypnotic “Bahm Bahm,” the latter being a track that was nearly scrapped from the final album altogether.

“I just want to make great music. Simply for the sake of creating great music,” Minaj wrote on her website prior to Pink Friday 2 dropping. “What’s wrong with that? Music that ppl will always remember b/c of that incredible feeling they had the very first time they heard it.” After detours into uninspiring EDM and pop collaborations, let’s hope this version of Minaj sticks around for a while longer.

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈