As I said in my review of Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded,” the star’s output has suffered from her and her label’s attempt to throw just about anything at the wall in hopes something sticks. In her music video for hopeless radio bait “Starships,” they use the same method, only this time with Dayglo paint and bikinis.
Minaj is seen emerging from the water, a beam from a “starship” of manufactured Girldom, the centerpiece of every cheap beach rave and Vicky’s Secret cliche you can think of. Certainly, Minaj looks beautiful, bound inside of strappy and stringy two pieces and body glitter on the beaches of Hawaii. But she doesn’t look comfortable. Signalling that Minaj’s dance moves are still unready for primetime, she’s a bumbling, posturing siren in a sea of hippie-trippies and professional hoofers (in bowler hats, to boot).
For everything wrong with this video and this type of video, just fast forward to the final scenes, where the party jumps around and Minaj has to literally hold onto her bouncing bountiful breasts: is it to mirror very similar actions that everyday party-going girls have to endure or a true reflection of the waste and half-baked madness Barbz must endure? Either way: it requires endruance to get through this mess.
Cash Money has got to quit trying to make Minaj into Rihanna With Raps. She’s got too much savage personality to fit into a sweetheart mold, too much talent as a rapper to squander and not enough know-how to navigate this kind of generic pop pageantry. It’s like watching “Toddlers & Tiaras” — she’s not ready, which makes “Starships” well-meaning but completely off-course.
“Starships” is off of “Reloaded,” which made it to No. 1 on the Billboard 200.