For some strange reason, Nicki Minaj seems to believe that releasing music videos en masse serves as compensation for a lack of live performances.
Tonight, in continuing that unfortunate trend, she releases a music video for ‘The Re-Up’ spawned single ‘Up In Flames’, no more than two weeks after releasing (and abandoning) the video for her Lil Wayne assisted single ‘High School‘.
Is this video any good?
You decide below…
While the video isn’t terrible, the mess that surrounds it made it impossible for us to enjoy.
For, while the last thing we’d want to do is offend Camp Minaj, it’s clear to see that something is deeply wrong with how the Rapper is handling herself, her music and how that music is pushed.
To begin with, the mass release of music videos only serves to downplay the worth of a Nicki Minaj video. Indeed, while we do like the clip, there is nothing mind blowing or phenomenal about it, marking yet another drop in the standard the MC established for herself between 2009- 2011.
Basically, nobody will be talking about this video next week in the way nobody talks about the visual for ‘High School’, ‘Pound The Alarm‘ or ‘Beez In The Trap‘ before it.
For someone whose aesthetic is just as central to her cause as her material, this video just doesn’t cut it and has us wondering exactly what happened between ‘Your Love’ and now that saw Nicki and her team get so lazy on a creative tip.
In all honesty, as long running supporters of the star (think ‘Beam Me Up Scotty’) we’re a little worried that the success of her debut LP and the dough she’s amassed since then has convinced her team that the world will accept anything and everything she does…when they won’t.
In short, we don’t think Nicki worked this hard to get to the top, only to release videos she could have spawned back in 2007- and hope ‘Reloaded’ underperformance will force her to reevaluate her brand as a musician and work to the standard that saw her take the world by storm just three years ago.