The landscape of hip-hop has definitely changed since the birth of the music genre more than 40 years ago and now more than ever there are White faces behind the mics of today’s big rap hits. Recently, rap’s reigning queen Nicki Minaj decided to weigh in on the impact of White artists on the game and she caused a major uproar online as she claimed that now is the best time in history to be a White rapper.
The drama unfolded last night when Minaj posted a screenshot of the iTunes top 10 charting Hip Hop/Rap songs and pointed out in the caption that “It’s a great time to be white rapper in America huh? These are the top 10 rap songs on US iTunes.”
It didn’t take long for the post to start a heated debate online and while many fans agreed with Minaj that the face of hip-hop, which was birthed in the Black community, is starting to become whiter, many other fans bashed the rapper for singling out White MCs.
With so much criticism, Minaj began editing her caption, initially adding, “S/O Em & Post. Two of my faves. Congrats to Em on his new album.”
However, as the criticism continued, Minaj retaliated with a heated clap back to all of her online critics.
“blocking all u sensitive d–k riders. It IS a great time to be a white rapper in America,” she said. “I wanna sign one for my new label. U know anyone? I spk my mthafkn mind n if u don’t like it gtfo my page d–k rida! Y’all can never wait to ride the Queen d–k! Sensitive a– ig thugs. Gtfoh.”
Later on, Minaj posted a clip of a J. Cole speaking about his 2014 song “Fire Squad,” where he directly addressed his concern and frustration with White artists appropriating and then dominating Black music genres like jazz and rap.
“I went to the iTunes Jazz page and I was like, ‘Oh!’ It hit me,” he says in the interview. “The entire page of iTunes Jazz is 99.7% white people… Jazz is a black form of music in its origins. And not only is it a black form of music, it was the hip-hop of its day. It was that much of a rebellious music.”
Minaj then commented “be mad at this too” before explaining, “whenever a black woman speaks on ANYTHING she’s labeled as ‘mad’ ‘angry’ ‘bitter.’ I’m on 4 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. I’m blessed & highly favored thx to my amazing fans. But I’ll spk on whatever the f–k I want to whenever the f–k I want to. I love being a smart successful woman. It’s never been cool or funny to be illiterate or uninterested in your own industry & how it works.”
However, Minaj later decided to delete all of her posts concerning the topic.
Well, what do you think of Minaj’s examination of White rappers in the industry? Let us know in the comments.
