Nicki Minaj

NIKKI MINAJ & art

Nikki Minaj performing

In the 1970's the music scene from the neighborhood bands to the big time groups like the Ebony’s, or funk masters like Mandrill, Chuck Brown, Tower of Power, James Brown, and innovators of sound like War, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Coltrane, John McLaughlin, Oregon, Al DiMeola, Chick Corea, Yes, Pink Floyd, Herbie Hancock, Airto Moriera, and the master composers, and musicians, some of whom I've named like Brazil's Hermento Pascoal, and Weather Reports Wayne Shorter, and Joe Zawinul put a huge pressure on serious musicians at every level. When drummer Tony Williams left the scene to study his craft, become a student, hone his craft, and musicianship musicians knew they had to go deep within themselves.


The need for fame whispered in the air, but old cats felt obligated to hip young musicians to the work of playing music, and place in its proper perspective. The practice, and the way one practiced led to serious jam sessions you dared not enter with just pretty looks, and a wish. Your 'shit' had to be tight, the older musicians used to say. Even it was tight you braced for constructive criticism. If you couldn't take that you needed to get out of the sessions because everybody was getting better advise, and encouragement. You couldn't take yourself too serious.

Most musicians got high. Drugs were the further connection to the Muse, the intangible breeze of creativity in the air we all felt, and responded to. Weed for the young musicians, heroin for those old jazz cats, acid slowly creeped into black circles, but it was stereotyped to white, crazy hippies. I was disciplined, and trained of spirit and emotion. I was the only one in the band who didn’t get high. I already had access. My first band I led. We had a French cat on sax player. We had to send him north in Morocco to find us gigs. He was a wild boy. Brother was a pale red headed dude. He could blow, but he lived in a far off land called: "Where you at?" He would solo like Charlie Parker on 'Cherokee' to the electronic blending of sounds, and styles of Al DiMeola's music. It didn’t fit. In Paris he used to ride into the traffic in a straight line! Anyone who has been to Paris knows how crazy Parisians are on the road. We never heard from him again.

Most musicians were not business savvy. We were deep in the music, the sounds we heard and gravitated to. We thought life flowing from us in our music would, in reverse, reward us with great paying gigs, and we'd play hard, and righteous, and wind up on stage with one of the cats we dug so much. Most Americans, educated, come out profoundly ignorant about money. Financial intelligence among the populace is not a desirable thing for a country like ours. Tens of thousands of dreams have died because of this obvious flaw in the American system.

Motown, and its competitors groomed their artists in every aspect of personal, and musical development. The business of music did not invest in the financial intelligence of its artists. It nurtured the need to know relationship with their talent, and smiled on the dependence and slight feeling of uneasiness musicians felt with and without lawyer representation. I couldn't tell how many musicians woke up feeling a nagging sense of loss around money, and the dim but hard press in the gut that said you ain't going to make a living at this; get a day gig, or a rich white woman who dug jazz musicians. Thelonius Monk had a long and deep relationship with a rich European woman who was devoted to him, his music, and the jazz community in New York. I think she loved him. She was emotionally isolated from her blood family because of her need to be in the New York jazz scene.

Stevie Wonder, and Marvin Gaye were the first major artists who took control of their product. Their business acumen blew everybody's mind. It opened us up, and shed light on our ignorance. Hip Hop's genius lies in several things. For this story I am looking at the connections they made that made business a part of the musician’s craft. It's a beautiful thing.

I saw the R&B singer, Nicki Minaj; perform on the Letterman Show, an awards show, and something else. She is electricity, water, and fire. She stands out. She has the color, the energy, and the imagination of all the ancestors of Black music, and beyond rolled into a short body. There is a lot to enjoy about Nicki Minaj, and analyzing her is absurd. She needs to be seen and experienced. Belonging to a small handful of artists who connect spirituality with sound on her level is a great tribute. I hope she inspires young people to expand their choices beyond the clichés of popular culture into who they are, and why they agreed to come into this world. – Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories