Harvest Blaque Earshot Blog: Darling Nicki? : (A prayer For Nicki Minaj)

Say a prayer for Nicki Minaj and for all who contort themselves to remain seen. Because few artists have ever been seen the way she was at her height. When Nicki arrived, she didn’t knock,she detonated. Voices stacked on voices. Characters arguing inside one body.

Color, chaos, control. She bent the rap around her cadence and made excess feel like precision. I miss that wit and phenomenal creativity and I hope she takes some quiet time to reinvest in that. Today it seems like she isn't picking her battles and that she definitely isn't picking her but that is just my opinion. I am speaking as a fan of hers and hip-hop first and foremost.

For a moment, with her it felt like it wasn’t about permission. It was about unique inevitability. You couldn’t ignore her if you tried. Those were the highs:The uncontainable originality.The technical brilliance no one could deny.The feeling that she had outrun every box they tried to lock her in But visibility is a hungry god.

There is a grief in watching brilliance bargain with approval and that grief grows louder the longer someone stays under the lights.

What begins as defiance slowly gets mistaken for obligation. The culture that once crowned you starts to invoice you.  You Reinvent again. Explain again. Prove it again. Smile the right way. Be palatable. Be loud but not too loud. Be dominant but grateful according to the rules she and others broke to be in the room.

 Nicki’s lows were never about her talent evaporating. They were about pressure calcifying. You see her now mixed into the buffoonery and boot licking of this president and beefing with industry peers but how did we get here? Let's talk about the weight of being both a symbol and target. About surviving in an industry that celebrates women only as long as they remain useful, agreeable, or easily consumed. When the armor stayed on too long, it started to look like hostility. When the fight never ended, everything began to feel like an enemy.And somewhere in that stretch between legend and lightning rod acceptance started to look like survival.

But acceptance is optional, never needed, and not salvation. I hope that she remembers that. I hope that she finds the woman who dominated the "Monster" track from Kanye's classic" My Beautiful  Dark Twisted Fantasy". That verse really gave me chills and moved her up my list to top ten female emcees for me. The vulnerability to body a fucking track with all male peers and eat them all alive. Maybe this a pep talk because I still don't think we've seen all that she has to offer the game.

 I  see this  current moment as a  quiet tragedy that  so many of us recognize in her story, because it isn’t just hers. It belongs to anyone who has ever twisted themselves smaller, louder, harder, sharper just to stay visible. Anyone who mistook being discussed for being held. Anyone who stayed in rooms that clapped while draining them dry.

The world rewards endurance, not healing. It rarely tells its icons they’re allowed to rest. So this is not a takedown. It’s not a verdict. It’s a prayer for Nicki Minaj, and for all who see themselves reflected in her contradictions. That she remembers she was whole before the metrics.

That her worth never depended on agreement. That she can loosen her grip on the battlefield and choose something softer without feeling like she’s lost.I hope she heals. I hope she finds her way back to the part of herself that didn’t need to bargain, only to create. And I hope, when the noise finally quiets, she discovers that being unseen for a moment can sometimes be the safest way home. Hell, maybe that one maybe one for me to grow on too.

-Bryan "Harvest Blaque" Hancock