Photo courtesy: Universal Music Group
Written by Steven Bielefield
Believe it or not, Nicki Minaj once was a pretty good rapper. No, really. Go back and listen to her earlier work, like her cover of Notorious B.I.G.’s “Warning,” and you’ll see she actually displayed talent before getting signed by Young Money. Ever since then her songs have been vapid, annoying pieces that draw attention to her craziness and sexuality, rather than skill and personality. Why? Because her label is afraid that without that pandering, she won’t see any success, so her hits get more and more sexual as she goes on. This brings us to her latest single, “Anaconda.”
In this song, Nicki raps about guys she’s had sex with and her butt. No, really, that’s it. Why is it called “Anaconda,” you ask? Well, because the hook samples a bit from Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1992 masterpiece, “Baby Got Back,” including the line, “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hon!” I’ll let you work out what the line means (here’s a hint: it’s not about a large South American snake who wants bread rolls).
Admittedly, the sample from “Baby Got Back” sort of makes sense, since “Anaconda” deals with Nicki’s booty. However, the producers put so many filters and scratches on the sample that it doesn’t enhance the song in any way. It just makes it clear that they put the sample in there only for the nostalgia of the original song, and around the fourth time you hear it, it goes from mildly humorous to incredibly irritating.
The parts of the song that Nicki did herself (well, “herself;” I should point out there are seven credited writers on this song) aren’t even better. The lyrics are just her bragging about a couple guys she’s slept with, who strangely enough are both drug dealers. Really, she goes out of her way to point that out. She even says in one line, “I let him hit it ‘cause he slang cocaine,” which doesn’t say very good things about her standards…
But I’m getting off track. The lyrics in general are nothing special. They’re full of sexual innuendos that a middle-school boy would consider immature, lazy word play, and Nicki delivers each line in an obnoxious high-pitched voice that grates my eardrums. Her voice becomes most irritating in the song’s outro, which goes on for way, way too long.
Then there’s the video. Take a wild guess what the content is. If you guessed anything aside from, “Nicki and other women in stupid costumes doing vaguely sexual acts,” you clearly don’t know Nicki Minaj. Sure enough, this video is full of girls dancing and moving their behinds to the beat. Nicki also joins in to shake her tail feather, as well as deep-throat a banana and give Drake a lap dance. It’s pretty much what you’d expect for a song like this.
I’m gonna wrap this up, since there isn’t much else to say and I’m running out of euphemisms for “butt” without getting into inappropriate territory. Overall, “Anaconda” is a bland, annoying song that only degrades the song it samples and apes to be, “Baby Got Back.” It’s overly sexual, with no subtlety or cleverness, and is clearly just pandering to her male audience. It all seems like a plea for people to pay attention to Nicki, just because she’s presenting her derrière to us (I lied about running out of euphemisms).
Well, it seems to be working, since the song peaked at No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and the video has more than 132 million views on YouTube, so what do I know? I guess the power of the gluteus maximus is far greater than I thought.
