Nicki Minaj

The Pinkprint

Nicki is more personal, more timeless and more connected to her own artistry here, serving some of the most superlative work of her established career on The Pinkprint, as the rap queen uncovers the most vulnerable side to her yet

The Pinkprint runs a middle path between pop over exertion and real lyricism, creating an everything for someone aesthetic that Nicki doesn't allow to shift into wastefullness.

Riding diabolically hot beats from producers like Mike Will Made It and Hit-Boy, she breathes fire and oozes soul every time she touches the mic. This is a rap royal in full flex.

The Pinkprint is ultimately Nicki’s most cohesive project. It’s her most revealing about her recent and long-term emotional struggles

A bold progression from her previous work with some porno and punch line classics thrown in, The Pinkprint is certainly scattered, but it's well written and weighty where it needs to be, and it remains intriguing the whole way through.

It’s not a return to Mixtape Nicki, or a third round of Nicki The Brand’s world-conquering dance-pop. It’s an album by Onika Maraj. And it’s a serious album, in the sense that it asks to be taken seriously.

The PinkPrint is the closest Nicki Minaj has ever gotten to balancing her tendencies, and the furthest she’s ever been from emotional stability.

The Pinkprint overwhelmingly shifts the MC out of the competitive mindset into a more personal one than anything she'd previously put her name on.

If The Pinkprint is a letdown compared to The Blueprint, then Minaj brought it on herself. However, as a breakup album that takes heartbreak in every direction possible, it provides a template worth imitating.

This third album is the New Yorker’s most cohesive collection yet, but also her least thrilling.