made the violence both super-literal and completely fantastical.
#2 chainz beez in the trap crack
Think of Ice-T on “I’m Your Pusher,” where the skill of making hit records and selling you a hit of crack become one in the same (Nicki references the song with “I spit that crack, like I’m in that trap / So if you need a hit…”), or Public Enemy’s “My Uzi Weighs a Ton,” by which Chuck D really meant “My lyrics are awesome and will destroy you,” not, “I’m going to shoot you with an Uzi.” I’m turning this into some grad-school bullshit, I know (David Foster Wallace even wrote about this in 1990’s Signifying Rappers), but this was the function of most rap up until N.W.A. She’s successfully occupying the trap, ground zero for hardness, and calling its inhabitants “bitches,” all to prove that she is the consummate rhyming bad-ass. Former No Limit soldier Kenoe’s drip-drip synth with a little bit of an echo beat is very now in a stupidly, awesomely simple “Rack City” way, but it’s also as spare and raw as something that could’ve popped up on Rhyme Pays.Īnother way that “Beez in the Trap” is retro: Nicki employs street hardness as a signifier of how great she is at rapping, not as an attempt to actually convince anybody that she’s “hood” or any of that authenticity nonsense. Dre aphorism, “bitches ain’t shit,” and then makes it her own by throwing that misogynist bullshit right back. She matches the vocal delivery of Schoolly D’s “P.S.K What Does It Mean?” and Ice-T’s “6 N’ The Mornin’,” and quotes that Dr. So, “Beez in the Trap” is Nicki Minaj’s gangsta rap record, right? In the loose, street-rap context that shouts out crack sales and rounds up a guest verse from 2 Chainz, for sure, but also because of the way it nods to the late-’80s, minimalist origins of the genre.