‘Hottentot Barbie’ as a Multicultural Star: The Commodification of Race in Nicki Minaj’s Music Videos

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the ways in which race is commodified in Nicki Minaj’s music videos. It is argued that by selling both whiteness and blackness in various forms, Minaj establishes and sustains her persona as a multicultural star and is thus able to satisfy the demands of a wide, racially mixed audience. Most of Minaj’s videos are analyzed to support this point. The paper discusses Minaj’s music regarding genres and lyrical content, as well as the images in her clips, including her looks and moves. It is demonstrated how Minaj succeeds in and switches between both white-coded pop and black-coded rap music, how she embodies the white beauty standard as well as the exotic, sexual black woman, and how she successfully juggles markers of whiteness and blackness in a way that allows her to use both simultaneously and to easily switch from one to the other without losing credibility. Thus, Minaj becomes a multicultural star who occupies a space beyond common constraints of the conventional black/white binary.