Although most of Nicki Minaj’s recent hit singles, including “Blick Blick,” “We Go Up,” “Super Freaky Girl” and “Red Ruby da Sleeze,” have favored showcasing the rapper’s patented “hard edge,” it seems that with “Last Time I Saw You,” Minaj is reminding listeners of the softer side she presented, most notably, on 2014’s The Pinkprint. Perhaps because it was only on her sophomore album that she finally felt comfortable enough to let her…wig down (and no, “Super Bass,” her biggest hit from Pink Friday, hardly counts as one of Minaj’s “soft offerings”). With the upcoming release of her fifth album, Pink Friday 2, the selection of “Last Time I Saw You” as the establishing single to set the tone for it feels like a pointed choice at a time in rap’s history when women appear to be competing for who can offer the raunchiest lyrics and aesthetics (though Minaj often still wins on that count, too). Minaj’s decision to show her range with this particular “reflective slow jam” (or rather, mid-tempo jam) is undoubtedly a deliberate maneuver in terms of nudging listeners who might have forgotten (as if they could) that her “rap supremacy” stems from her vocal diversity as much as the bars she spits.
Although the song can be interpreted as a lament about a lost love (just as Kylie Minogue’s “Tension” can be interpreted as a song about a man, but reads more like a vibrator instructional), many have speculated that the track is a nod to her late father, Robert Maraj, who was killed in a hit and run in 2021. To be sure, the lyrics of the chorus, “I wish I’da hugged you tighter the last time that I saw you/I wish l didn’t waste precious time the night when I called you (ooh)/I wish I remembered to say I’d do anything for you/Maybe I pushed you away because I thought that I’d bore you,” are easily viewed through the lens of a daughter who had a strained relationship with her father. And yet, Minaj also makes the track accessible to those who can apply it to their botched romance as she recalls, “Them nights we wish never ended/Those rules that we wish we bended/Heartbreak that we never mended/Those messages we unsended/Best friends we somehow unfriended/Ain’t care ’bout who we offended/Parties they wish we attended/Got drunk and laughed, it was splendid.”
Reflecting, in this sense, on something of a Bonnie and Clyde dynamic (which could apply to a platonic friendship as well, therefore adding to the universality of this song), Minaj’s wistfulness for a time when she was still gallivanting with this “wild and crazy” person also speaks to her wistfulness for a time when she herself was wild(er) and crazy(er) (clearly, there must be something in the air right now, if we’re to also go on Miley “Miley, What’s Good?” Cyrus’ release of “Used to Be Young”). Such an admission of vulnerability and nostalgia on her part has become rarer and rarer since the days of The Pinkprint, with tracks like “I Lied,” “The Crying Game,” “Pills N Potions,” “Bed of Lies” and “Grand Piano” serving as launchpads into the softer side of Minaj. And, in contrast to her on-again, off-again rival, Cardi B, Minaj is less obliged, in these scenarios, to populate her songs with “harsh bars” to counteract the emotionalism (as is the case with Cardi B’s “Thru Your Phone”) she dares to showcase in a genre as dependent on “severity” as rap.
This applies especially to rap as delivered by women, who still seem determined to “measure up” to their male counterparts when it comes to being as risqué as possible. After all, at least eighty percent of “good” rap is contingent upon its shock value (hear also: 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny,” Lil’ Kim’s “How Many Licks?,” Ludacris featuring Shawnna’s “What’s Your Fantasy?,” etc.). Yet, because audiences have been so desensitized to phrases like, “My neck, my back/Lick my pussy and my crack,” it takes a one-upping song like “WAP” to scandalize people again (and yes, Nicki appeared to want to at least vaguely compete with that single later on via the much tamer “Super Freaky Girl”).
Although Cardi appears to be the current Queen of Rap Raunch (until Ice Spice takes over that too), Minaj has had no shortage of offending lyrics from which to choose from over the course of her discography, including the ones from her mixtape days, when she would say things like, “Got that Super Soaker/Pussy pop like Cola Coca/Plus it’s tighter than a choka/Got ‘em smilin’ like the Joker.”
However, perhaps there’s something to be said for motherhood bringing out a woman’s gentler facets (now and again, anyway) if one is to base it on the release of “Last Time I Saw You,” easily one of the greatest additions to Minaj’s canon. One that so often gets shrouded behind her, let’s say, “rough-hewn” persona. As though to further emphasize her state of tenderness on this track, she even dares to sample lyrics from the same nursery rhyme once reserved solely for Madonna on “Lucky Star” by singing, “Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight/Wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.”
Alas, the one wish she truly wants to come true—to be with or at least see this person who she had an unsatisfying final interaction with once again—can never be a reality. And it’s an ache listeners can truly feel emanating from her vocals in this sweeping ode to loss. Thus, if the rest of Pink Friday 2 is anything like this, Minaj needn’t worry about her precious crown being taken from current rap it girls like Megan Thee Stallion and Ice Spice (both of whom Minaj has collaborated with…as though to keep her friends close and her competition closer). Because the best of the rap girls know how to exhibit a wide range of emotions far beyond mere “Gobble me, swallow me, drip down the side of me” territory.
