So, I didn't watch the Grammys last night. I thought about tuning in for the Whitney Houston tribute. But something told me that I would have to sit through hours of extreme dullness just to see a rushed, half thought out attempt at memorializing a legend and decided to wait until the Soul Train awards. Instead I watched the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead. Borefest.
Nevertheless, I caught the highlights of the awards earlier this morning including Nicki Minaj's performance, which many so eloquently classified as "WTF?!?!" Some folks thought it was demonic while others came to the conclusion that Minaj's reenactment of the Exorcism of Emily Rose during her Roman Holiday performance was just flat out exploitative. If you haven't seen the performance, here it is in all it's weird, confusing glory:
Forget all the other demonic stuff everybody else was talking about. In my mind that plays a very distant second (I mean no one was screaming demon when Michael Jackson was crawling out of tombs for Thriller) to the fact that it just wasn't hot. I have no beef with the theatrics, in fact I am a fan of the theater. And I get it, she is trying to be on some ole' Madonna-Gaga, big budget production stuff. Good for her. About time that Hip-Hop artists start giving their fans a show worthy of the high priced tickets. However to pull this off successfully I definitely believe she needs a better stage director. This mess looks like it was directed by Tyler Perry. Plus it was dated. The Exorcist is on its 1500th remake already, time to give it a rest.
At least, that's what I thought initially. Later that morning, I saw pictures of her red carpet get-up and had sort of an epitome:
Poor grammar aside (what's new, right?), it was an interesting and thoughtful question, which spurred an equally interesting conversation on my Facebook page. I think as people of color, it is especially hard to be taken serious if we step outside of the norm of what is expected of us. Especially among our own folks, who easily dismiss any attempt at being avant garde as pure buffoonery. With so much backlash Nicki has gotten for this performance, perhaps we are missing the greater message in the madness?
With that in mind, I decided to republish our conversation here in hopes of continuing this dialog about the themes in both her performance at the Grammy as well as her overall aesthetic as an artist. Please note that I presented this dialog as it appeared on my Facebook wall, therefore I didn't edit any of the comments for spelling or grammatical errors. I feel that by now, we all should be keen on how casual and comfortable people tend to write in spaces populated by friends and family. However, I did edit out the full names of those who commented in hopes of maintaining some level of anonymity.
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