Nicki Minaj
Pink Friday

In recent years, the female hip-hop scene was missing a strong female figure, and here comes Nicki Minaj, discovered by the rapper Lil' Wayne and taken under his protective wing.

After various (Decidedly too many) features with people from the urban scene and beyond (Christina Aguilera, M.I.A.), she releases her debut album Pink Friday.

What she presents is a Pop/Rap mash-up that makes us think our amusing friend Minaj decided to play it safe to sell.

There are actually very few tracks that showcase a quite good MC talent, Roman's Revenge featuring Eminem is one of the album's highest points: a diss dedicated to the Queen Bee, Lil' Kim (Who is increasingly resembling a sedated Pomeranian) along with Blazin', this one featuring Kanye West.

In Moment 4 Life, the combination of the rapped verses and pop chorus works, quite well, Save Me and Fly instead are the ballads of the album, the first starting with an intro vaguely (VAGUELY, mind you) reminiscent of Drum'n'Bass, then evolving into an rnb tearjerker ballad that is saved by Nicki's voice, while the second song, where Nicki is joined by Rihanna, never quite takes off. Here I Am despite the chorus that leaves a feeling of déjà vu, is saved by the rapped parts, but especially by the production.

The lowest points are Check It Out produced by Will.i.am (Who is becoming more obnoxious and irritating) which is a mash-up of already heard and terribly embarrassing. Your Love with an incredibly clichéd and rather banal sample, leaves one quite puzzled.

The rest is the usual stuff, pleasant to a certain point before becoming sickly.

What she presents is a Pop/Rap mash-up that makes us think our amusing friend Minaj decided to play it safe to sell.

Therefore, I give the album a 2.5, maybe a 3 being generous (and also because she is hot), because Nicki could have done much more than this. But she decided to take the easy win.