The Turning the Tables project seeks to suggest alternatives to the traditional popular music canon, and to do more than that, too: to stimulate conversation about how hierarchies emerge and endure.
This year, Turning the Tables considers how women and non-binary artists are shaping music in our moment, from the pop mainstream to the sinecures of jazz and contemporary classical music.
Our list of the 200 Greatest Songs By Women+ offers a soundtrack to a new century. This series of essays takes on another task.
The 25 arguments writers make in these pieces challenge the usual definitions of influence. Some rethink the building legacies of popular artists; others celebrate those who create within subcultures, their innovations rippling outward over time.
As always, women forge new pathways in sound; today, they also make waves under the surface of culture by confronting, in their music, the increased fluidity of “woman” itself.
What is a woman? It’s a timeless question on the surface, but one deeply engaged with whatever historical moment in which it is asked.
Nicki Minaj took the title. “When I come through, I do it f****** big!” she proclaimed on The Come Up, a rap video series featuring interviews and music vignettes, in 2007.
In her most famous clip, Minaj freestyles from the stairwell while flashing a wad of cash from her luxury handbag.
In a genre where men dominate the uppermost echelon — and only one woman usually flourishes at a time — the top is a lonely place.
Minaj has indelibly changed the landscape for artists in hip-hop for the past decade, showing a complex visage: the ferocious emcee (“Monster,” “Itty Bitty Piggy”) who’s just as comfortable being the girl-next-door (“Right Thru Me”), glammed-up Barbie doll or rambunctious alter-ego Roman Zolanski
This kind of backlash could destroy an artist, but Minaj leverages it in her favor. She doesn’t abandoned who she is — a competitive rapper at the core — but rather, this new phase becomes part of her ongoing narrative.
Despite the drama (or maybe because of it), her star continues to rise. “FEFE” is her highest-charting song this year, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and has been certified platinum.
Queen Radio is one of Apple Music’s most popular shows — trending every week — and many fans and industry insiders tune in just to hear what Minaj will rant about. Some speculate that this could help the rapper pivot into a broadcasting career similar to Joe Budden or Noreaga.
And that label as the “bad guy” has its benefits too; Minaj has been named a face of Diesel’s cheeky anti-bullying campaign.
Minaj doesn’t seem surprised. “All the QUEENS I remember, SHOOK S*** UP!!!!!!!!,” she tweeted this summer. She’s is control, as always.
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