Why Did Nicki Minaj Endorse Mitt Romney?

By Alec Niedenthal Sep 05, 2012 5:20 pm

A silly question, but an important one nonetheless.

MINYANVILLE ORIGINAL This might seem like a waste of time to bother thinking about, but I promise (or dearly hope) it isn’t: Nicki Minaj’s verse on Lil’ Wayne’s “Mercy,” a song delivered over the musical backdrop of Kanye West’s track of the same name, boasts an endorsement of Mitt Romney. Minaj—or, careful not to stumble into the freshman year indiscretion of identifying speaker with poetess, one of her legion personalities—raps, “I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney/You lazy b----es is f-----g up the economy.”

To those few who remain Young Money novitiates, Minaj’s work is a game of shadows, an exercise in deception and imposture, rap's princess pivoting from character to character several times in a single verse. Fey and squeaky-sounding one second, the next her voice will spin off into a horrifying, hellish bellow. Since her breakout verse on Kanye’s “Monster,” these acrobatics—her volatility and willingness to stretch into new registers and tones—have made her into a hip-hop icon, a symbol of the genre’s march along the terra nova of the human voice.

But here’s the rub: Even if Minaj isn’t serious about her endorsement (unlikely because she’s Tweeted that Obama’s health care legislation doesn’t go far enough), is there a connection between this sort of laissez-faire worldview and your average rapper’s relentless brag about his or her status as a nouveau riche?

After all, she has a legitimate deal with Adidas AG (ADDDF) to promote the Adidas Originals line of shoes. A $16 billion company obviously takes her seriously.

Even if hip-hop opinion has always leaned to the left, who’s to rule out a future parvenu supporting the sort of Republican platform that cuts domestic spending and privatizes Medicare? So maybe the joke’s on Nicki, too, if we’re also profoundly gullible—what makes us believe her so easily? Is Nicki’s slip a prank or parapraxis?