Because of Notorious B.I.G.’s untouchable status as rap legend, it’s often difficult to talk as frankly about how unwell his lyrics hold up with the passing of time. From homophobic comments like, “Money and blood don’t mix like two dicks and no bitch” to the objectifying ones of “Just Playing (Dreams)”–which we’ll get to momentarily–Notorious B.I.G. has never been exactly emblematic of “progress” in rap. Thankfully, Nicki Minaj is here to step up (though she, too, has been deemed insensitive to and by the LGBTQ community) and rewrite the narrative of a rap classic for her latest album, Queen.
Considering its appearance on Biggie’s most legendary and influential album, Ready to Die, the former unbesmirchability of the song was heightened by the fact that Lil’ Kim did her best to revamp the lyrics with the same thematic concept behind it, lusting ever slightly more reverently after “R&B dick” than Biggie did of an “R&B bitch” with his objectifying comments, “Them jeans they fitting like a glove/I had a crush on you since ‘Real Love’/Hold your horses, I’ma show you who the boss of intercourse is.” And though Lil’ Kim conveys a similar amount of dissatisfaction as Minaj with some of the available options by noting, “I got no patience for little dick tastin’,” it’s not with the same conviction and mockery as Nicki, who doesn’t even bother to act as though any of these “little rappers” might be able to satisfy her.
Coming for one of her own Young Money alumni, Nicki goads, “Drake worth a hundred milli, always buying me shit/But I don’t know if the pussy wet or if he crying and shit,” and then lays into her own ex, Meek Mill, with, “Meek still be in my DMs/I be having to duck him/’I used to pray for times like this’/Face ass when I fuck him.”
Of course, homophobia and rap still continue to go hand in hand, with Nicki shading Young Thug for his “genderless” propensities via the lyric, “Used to fuck with Young Thug, I ain’t addressin’ this shit/Caught him in my dressing room, stealin’ dresses and shit/I used to give this nigga lisp testers and shit/How you want the pu-thy? Can’t say your S’s and shit.” While Young Thug stated of his aesthetic decision to appear on the cover of his Jeffery mixtape in a dress (a culturally appropriated look that Nicki’s Chun-Li could get on board with), “You could be a gangster with a dress, you could be a gangster with baggy pants. I feel like there’s no such thing as gender,” Minaj doesn’t seem to be buying it.
With a hopeless tone of ennui in her voice, Minaj almost sighs as if to say “eh, why not?” as she raps, “Dreams of fuckin’ one of these little rappers/I’m just playin’–but I’m sayin’.” This last disclaimer part, also wielded for “not at fault” purposes by Biggie in the original, is insurance that Minaj can’t be found culpable for her callouts. Though, of course, the public and the rappers mentioned are already reacting (with Young Thug responding with a tear emoji on Twitter). Though it’s perhaps DJ Khaled that Minaj can’t really say she’s “just playin'” about as she calls him out for his non-pussy eating ways with, “Had to cancel DJ Khaled, boy, we ain’t speaking/Ain’t no fat nigga telling me what he ain’t eatin’.”
Through each diss expressing displeasure, Minaj reminds us that surprise! women can be sexually appetitive as well, and that doesn’t make them a sinner or a nympho or anything other than a flesh and blood human being. What’s more, she does it in a far less demeaning way than Biggie with his “way harsh Tai” references to domestic violence (“Smack Tina Turner give her flashbacks of Ike”) and transphobic classifications of ugliness (“I’ll fuck RuPaul before I fuck them ugly ass Xscape bitches”). Except, because she is a woman, everyone is taking the track way too much to heart, incapable of having a sense of humor about it as headlines like, “Nicki Minaj ruthlessly blasts Drake, DJ Khaled, Meek Mill and more in ‘Barbie Dreams’ lyrics,” swirl. And yet, no one ever came for Biggie when he treated women like pieces of meat up on the chopping block for physical assessment. Maybe now, however, with Minaj willing to come for everyone with her signature brand of tongue-in-cheek humor (something that perhaps only her occasional collaborator Madonna can comprehend), the glass ceiling separating women from the “privilege” of being able to lust with the same “grossness” as men will be shattered just a little bit further.
