The Nikki Minaj Phenomenon

I enjoy music. But I do not consider myself sophisticated enough to critique it. Yesterday I saw a performance of Nikki Minaj's at the Emmys. Nikki walked on the red carpet dressed as red riding hood with a dude dressed as the Pope and then performed what seemed like a confused parody on the Church. The sole motive of the whole deal seemed to be nothing other than being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous. This has now inspired me to try to critique music and so I'll try to bite something I probably can't quite chew.

I respect Nikki Minaj's achievement in making it to the top. It requires a lot of talent and hard work. She is as old as I, yet her achievement is many thousands times greater than anything I have ever done in my life. But I don't think her music, as I saw in the Grammys, is good music and I think it worth the time pondering why.

I think there are two kinds of music, the ones that bring a tear to the eye and the ones that add a rhythm to the stride. Listening to the Adagio in G minor or some Pink Floyd stuff can move one to tears. On the other hand, the Hungarian Dance or the Black Eye Pea can add a rhythm to one's stride. There is one thing both of them exploit, that is that God has created an intelligent universe in which any sound that adheres to musical norms/laws resonates deeply within human beings. Such music evokes the deepest emotions brining about a psychological contentment. Whether it is Beethovens' 5th or LMFAO's Party Rock, both follow the musical norms that resonate with the part of us that is patently human, as God created us to be.

The goal of musicians through the centuries has been to find newer expressions of the musical norms/laws that deeply resonate with us. So whether it be Beethoven or Black Eye Pea, the goal of music is to conform of the norm/law of music thereby eliciting deeply human responses.

The two apart, there is the third kind of music, where the goal is not to conform to the norms of music but to 'stand out' by non-conformance and make that the point of appeal. There is not a lot of ways this non-conformance can be achieved, because beyond a certain point, 'standing out' just gets too jarring even to the ones with the most jaded of senses. So the goal of this performer is to 'stand out' by manifesting non-conformance non-musically. The easiest way of non-musical non-conformance is through bombastic visuals - popes and priest and exorcisms and gothic cathedrals and speaking in tongues and ancient hymns... as Nikki Minaj did at the Emmys. Sometimes it can just be some 'accidental' wardrobe malfunctions, just saying...

If we look at human history, until the 20th century the goal of living was to conform to the ideal of what it meant to be human. Idealism was the highest goal sought. The question that troubled philosophers and prophets and priests and the peasants was the question of the 'highest good' and how to conform to it. Everyone endeavored to move towards the norm of what it truly meant to be human - reflecting the image of God in us. But with the advent of modernism and ultra-modernism, 'individual expression' has taken the place of the ideal. So the new goal is not to conform to the norms, but to 'stand out' in every arena, music included.

People will do anything to 'stand out' and people will admire everything that 'stands out' as long as its titillative value is high enough to appeal to the jaded sense that no longer has the patience or the nuance to enjoy the music that adheres to the norms. Nikki Minaj is not the first to ride this way of egregious individual expressionism, she will not be the last.

Nikki Minaj can 'stand out' by do everything from belittling Priests to disparaging Christianity. She is after all, the new Madonna (remember the burning cross). But there is no way she can stand up against God designed timeless norms/laws of what makes music enjoyable to the human ear. As the legendary Cecil De Miller's said before the screening of his timeless classic, 'The Ten Commandments', "man cannot break the law of God, anyone who tries will only find himself breaking against it".