Nicki Minaj just dropped her new track “Chun Li” during an interview with Zane Lowe on Beats 1. It isn’t bad, although I am concerned that she thinks Chun Li is the villain.
Image: Nicki Minaj
Nicki hasn’t recorded much solo music recently, and a lot of her features on other people’s tracks have sounded like she’s been asleep. While “Chun Li” doesn’t reach the high heights of “Itty Bitty Piggy” or even “Super Bass”, it’s a respectable showing, and I’m into the beat. Given that she apparently finished recording this track yesterday, I’ll give her some props.
“I played the beat at like three, four in the morning. I was about to go home. I had worked all day, I hadn’t slept for days probably. And this was only two days ago, and my producer texted me to come in,” Minaj told Zane Lowe before she premiered the track. “He played me a bunch of stuff, I heard this one and I was like ‘OK’, and I went in the booth. All of the melodies you’re about to hear, I did them in five minutes in the booth.”
The song is named after Chun Li, a Street Fighter character that, like Minaj, is known for her thick thighs. Chun Li is not, however, a villain, and in the line where this character is referenced, Minaj seems convinced that she is. “They need rappers like me,” she says during the bridge, “So they can get on their fucking keyboards and make me the bad guy, Chun Li.” Chun Li is actually a pretty clean-cut cop character, but OK Nicki, go off! She also says she’s “been off, Lara been Croft,” after basically listing out all the designer clothes and luxury cars she owns, and that reference tracks a little better.
This isn’t the first time Nicki has gotten a little nerdy – she’s decked out in Wonder Woman cosplay on the cover of her third mixtape, “Beam Me Up Scotty”. She’s usually a little more accurate than this, though. Onika, if you want to get more familiar with Street Fighter I’m sure there’s a fight night in New York that would love to have you.
Comments
25 responses to “Nicki Minaj Seems Confused About Chun Li In Her New Track”
At the end of the day, do we really care what this degenerate thinks?
why is she a degenerate? thats pretty dismissive.
people can wear whatever hairstyle they want and this is coming from a black person
Why has most rap music just turned into bragging?
Because ‘murica and I’m not being silly, it’s a cultural thing.
Here in Australia we have tall poppy syndrome where we cut down people who show off their affluence in American they are the opposite and people flaunt it to gain social standing. That’s why you see poor people with big gold chains, to give the perception of being rich.
This really needed to be released on a Tuesday.
Looking through the lyrics Nicki isn’t saying that Chun-Li is a villain, but in the song continuum people are making her (Nicki) out to be the bad guy and I guess the intent is to say that she’s going to adopt the tough attitude of Chun-Li to fight back. She makes reference to this being on her number plates in another part of the song.
Lyrics here: https://genius.com/Nicki-minaj-chun-li-lyrics
Completely inscrutable.
I’m trying to figure out if there’s some hidden code in there.
Seeing that I’m glad Kotaku cropped the image
She probaly spent more time making that photo than on her track.
A downvote really? Every second word is bitch, how creative.
Where is the outcry over cultural appropriation that we get any time a white person uses Asian media or characters?
Side note: I don’t believe there should be any, in either scenario. But I hate the hypocrisy that it’s only bad if a white person does it.
I don’t think you know what cultural appropriation is if you think mentioning a video game character in a song is an example.
Look at how she’s done up with her hairstyle explicitly copying Chun-Li’s. Now go look at articles complaining about how white people shouldn’t put their hair in corn-rows or dreads because it’s cultural appropriation. Then you can come back and comment.
White people shouldn’t put their hair in corn rows or dreads because it’s dumb as fuck. Minaj can wear an odango do or whatever for a promo shot if she wants. If that upsets you then you need to have a think about why.
Why does it look dumb as fuck only on white people?
Were you born without eyes and need a description?
Yes I would like a description why a race of people aren’t allowed to do something that others are.
Go back and read my initial post. I don’t care if she does it, I don’t care if a white person does it, or an Indian or an Innuit. I hate the “omg it’s cultural appropriation” cries from people. But I hate the hypocrisy of people who claim cultural appropriation *ONLY* when white people copy something more. And I find it extremely frustrating when a site that often posts articles talking about cultural appropriation and white-washing doesn’t make any mention of it because the person doing it is not white.
“wah wah I want to be outraged online too”
You don’t usually see black people as a whole put down Asians as a race. She’s actually wearing that hair style to say she’s tough like Chun-Li. White people on average have misconceptions regarding black people and when you are doing corn rows and dreads and you still are subconsciously and in many ways actively racist towards a culture than that’s where it’s more a out cultural appropriation.
There we go. The “only white people can be racist” argument. Hate to break it to you but it’s not true, every race has problems with racism. Racism isn’t endemic to a particular race it’s specific to individuals.
It’s also not cultural appropriation when you dress up as Lucio. Chun Li isn’t a highly regarded, historically significant part of Chinese life. She’s a Japanese video game character.
Guess you missed all the African American vs Korean riots and trouble in the US in the 80s and 90s, or the anti Korean sentiment in the US that’s still there today.
In fact go read up on the LA riots, the koreans were a major target of black outrage, being owners if a lot of the retail industry and treating blacks poorly the hate between the 2 group’s is huge.
2 plus 2 is four.
Minus 1 that’s 3, quick mafs.
I know, but I had to.
Chun-Li’s actual backstory probably doesn’t matter in this at all.
What matters is that she’s a fighter character who is hot enough to be compared to Nicki, and -from what Nicki seems to be saying- others rappers are using Nicki as someone they can go up against or look better than, like a NPC opponent.