Nicki Minaj Says It's a Great Time to Be a White Rapper (She's Not Wrong)

Nicki Minaj Says It's a Great Time to Be a White Rapper (She's Not Wrong)

Nicki Minaj took to Instagram last night to make a comment that was so banal it shouldn't have caused controversy, and yet, of course it did. 2017 ain't over yet.

The rapper posted a screenshot of the iTunes top 10 Hip-Hop/Rap chart, which as of last night included eight white rap groups and only two black ones with the caption, "It's a great time to be a white rapper in America huh? These are the top 10 rap songs on US iTunes. S/O to Em & Post. Two of my faves. Congrats to Em on his new album. #Motorsport put dat thing in sport."

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Of the 10 songs listed, Migos' "Motorsport" (featuring Nicki) and N.E.R.D.'s "Lemon" are the only two performed by black artists, with the rest of the chart populated by Post Malone, Eminem, Lil Pump, Macklemore, G-Eazy and Halsey, NF and Machine Gun Kelly. Minaj has since deleted the posts, but before doing so wrote, "Update blocking all u sensitive dick riders. It IS a great time to be a white rapper in America. I wanna sign one for my new label. U know anyone? I spk my mthafkn mind n if u don't like it gtfo my page dick rida! Y'all can never wait to ride the Queen dick! Sensitive ass ig thugs. Gtfoh."

She then followed that up with a post including a video of J.Cole's 2014 interview with Angie Martinez where he discussed jazz music, originally a black art form, becoming a white commodity. "Whenever a black woman speaks on ANYTHING she's labeled as "mad" "angry" "bitter," Minaj wrote. "I'm on 4 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. I'm blessed & highly favored thx to my amazing fans."

Despite the fact that nothing Minaj said was particularly radical — white artists have long been gaining popularity in art forms created by black people, who have often seen fewer returns on their work than the white artists that came after them — people in the comments couldn't handle it. This is, after all, a world in which people saw Black Thought of The Roots trending for a mind-melding 10-minute freestyle and complained that 'white thought' was being left out.

Image by Ellen von Unwerth