Andy Hutchins: sotc-nyc: After a year in which her rep as a...

Sep 4, 2012
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After a year in which her rep as a legitimate rap artist has been dented by an album that split its time between dense rhymes and enormous, danceable beats, America has suddenly decided to take Nicki Minaj seriously. And all it took was her bigging up rich white dude Mitt Romney on a verse over G.O.O.D. Music’s “Mercy.”

“I’m a Republican, votin’ for Mitt Romney/ You lazy bitches is fuckin’ up the econ’my,” she raps near the end of the verse, which appears on Lil Wayne’sDedication 4mixtape. The Internet, whose geniuses often struggle with understanding rap lyrics, took her at her word: Google News has blown up with stories about the mention, with Twitter/Reddit/4chan distillery BuzzFeed among many outlets to publish a post to the effect of “Nicki Minaj is voting for Mitt Romney!” without engaging the context of the song.

That bloggers, reporters, and Twitter users would do this is unsurprising—engaging with the context of rap can be difficult!—but taking rappers at their literal word is almost always a no-no, especially when the lines take to the absurd.

Andy Hutchins on why the “Nicki Minaj endorses Romney” line of reasoning is pretty dumb. (And why Lil Wayne is the president who should be worried about her verse on “Mercy.”)

I had some thoughts about this and sent Maura a DM at an insane hour and these are my thoughts about this.

(via )