shield your eyes

DAPHNE CARR ON NICKI MINAJ

“On Roman Reloaded, Minaj mostly articulates her own internalized male gaze as a twisted, racist bigot she calls Roman Zolansky who, in his madness, still finds time to hype Minaj while saying all kinds of nasty shit she wouldn’t say. It’s like her own response song. Roman’s mom makes worried appearances too, her stuffy British accent delivered with a wax-cylinder warble. Suckers fall for it, calling Minaj’s switches, and her Roman persona specifically, “sociopathic,” “wild,” “schizophrenic,” and the tracks spastic, frenetic, twisted. Of course, plenty of people said the same of Roman’s friend Slim Shady, but lots of folks forgave him because that sociopath could really rap.

In this case, the repressed ego is not a white man’s burden but that of a young black woman for whom the odds were stacked high and who, in spite of that, made it to number one. Her Roman might just say the things she needs to tell herself to succeed in Shady’s world: make enemies with women rather than allies, stick close to male power, and only show weakness in your female character, a.k.a. the second half of the album. When not rapping as Roman, Minaj talks about her period, abortion, and self-intitated sexual curiosity openly in song, meaning that there’s room for her rap game to include the realities of being a woman, even if the territory is uncertain since it is so underdeveloped.”