Following the release of her iconic album Pink Friday, Nicki Minaj just released Pink Friday 2. Since then, a lot of things have happened in rap, and Nicki herself is probably responsible for paving a path for a lot of it. This album has pretty much a similar sonic picture all the way through, but still features enough diversity in production to keep it interesting. We hear a lot of trap drums, 808s, old school vocal and string sampling techniques frequently used in hip hop. Moreover, some tracks are dancehall, some use distorted kick drums and some use low boomy drums ready for a club. All in all if you listen to this as an album from beginning to end, you might get sonically tired because even though we hear a lot of different tempos, instruments and artists, the sound picture is largely the same. Boomy drums, thin samples and upfront vocals. I think the album is meant to have standout bangers, just fitting hand in glove with how music is consumed less and less by the album and more by the single. 

The opening track “Are You Gone Already” extensively uses a sample from Billie Eilish’s iconic song “When The Party’s Over”, from 2019. Now when I say extensively I mean very much so. I think the pitched up Eilish sample gets more spotlight than the actual song, posing the question, what song is this really? Posing the next question, does that really matter if the song is good? Besides, the track was produced by FINNEAS, Billie Eilish brother. So there is probably no bad blood between any of the artists going on. The original song is already fantastic but hearing Nicki Minaj sing over a beat with Eilish’s vocals in the background makes the old song fresh and the new song better! Nicki is quoted for talking about how she started crying only 25 seconds into hearing the introduction song to her album, when FINNEAS showed her his production. That is huge!

The album shifts mood a few times, but a majority of the songs have the confident “get out of my way” type of lyrics and sonics. In the same basket, this album has a lot of TikTok songs. So there are naturally catchy hooks with beats that are engineered to simply be good to listen to. Owing to the album's popularity is not only the extremely well phrased Nicki who knows how to make her voice heard, but also all the co-producers and writers, too many to be comprehensively named here. What a job! There is a dancehall track featuring Drake, smooth rap track with J.Cole and so much more. Big names like Lil Wayne, Lil Uzi Vert and Future are also on the album. No doubt when you have so many iconic artists, producers and writers all working on one single album that something great is going to come out. Up to you to decide! Go and give it a spin.

Author: Peter Källman

Peter Källman is a writer from Sweden who loves playing in bands, writing reviews and going to live shows!