Nicki Minaj has shared the music video for her hit track Super Freaky Girl, released in August, and this time The Harajuku Barbie has gone for a Barbie/Stepford Wives aesthetic.
Minaj appears in a Barbie box, then takes part in a dance routine in the street, before barbecuing with her Ken (played by Canadian actor and musician Alexander Ludwig) in the garden. Later, she’s firing pink fire at him as he goes to work, and then she has a machine gun. Obviously.
There are so many shades of pink: Minaj’s signature wigs, the plant pots, the radio, the curtains, the sky and finally the car that is driving down the street, running people over. Does it make sense? Of course not. But is it fun? Absolutely.
Super Freaky Girl, which heavily samples Rick James‘s 1981 track Super Freak, went straight to the top of the Billboard Hot 10 when it was released last month. It is Minaj’s first solo single in three years – her last one was Megatron back in 2019 – and it made a huge splash: breaking Spotify records with more than three million first-day streams, and becoming Minaj’s third US number one single.
Her last studio album, Queen, was released back in 2018, though Minaj has released six collaborative tracks as a lead artist since Megatron, including Do We Have A Problem? with Lil Baby in February. Minaj also released greatest hits compilation album Queen Radio: Volume One a week ago.
The lyrics to Super Freaky Girl are spicy, summoning comparisons to Minaj’s hyper-sexual 2014 hit Anaconda: “You can smack it, you can grip it, you can go down and kiss it / And every time he leave me ‘lone, he always tell me he miss it,” raps Minaj.
The music video has been directed by Joseph Kahn who has worked with some of the world’s biggest artists including Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears and Ciara.
In a March 2022 interview with the former rapper Joe Budden on his eponymous podcast, Minaj spoke about her forthcoming projects. The Grammy-nominated artist said she is working on a documentary and may also be featuring in a film, too: “I am working with a director working on a movie. It’s a bigger role than I’ve ever taken on,” she said.
She also spoke about building her own business empire. “I am creating my own management company,” Minaj said. “I’m also doing my record company. I have a couple of artists that I will start the record company with. I’ll speak on that closer to album time.”
