Image from http://www.mix1079.net
For those of you who may not know, I am not the biggest fan of Nicki Minaj. Honestly, I don’t know what it is. Sometimes her songs are quirky and catchy, other times they just fall flat of my expectations of what pop music should be. (You can argue that she’s more in the rap genre, but anyone who does a song with Bieber is pop in my book.)
I was driving and flipping through the stations when I heard Pills N Potions for the first time. Well – first time that I was able to digest the lyrics and try to get her message. Which, I listened to it, read the lyrics, tried to soak it in…and I still don’t get it. So I snagged these lyrics from the ever helpful AZLyrics.com to help demonstrate my point…
Ayo they could never make me hate you
Even though what you was doing wasn’t tasteful
Even though you out here looking so ungrateful
Imma a keep it moving, be classy and graceful
I told ‘em it’s no friends in the game
You ain’t learned that yet
Maybe I need clarification on this one. So… no one can make her hate this guy, even though what he was doing was drastically out of her comfort zone. Am I right so far? He doesn’t appreciate her, so she’s going to move on…because, you know, no friends in the game. Even though…they were friends in the game before all this happened. But, we’re going to forget that part because it suits the song.
All the bridges you came over, don’t burn that yet
N****s want respect, but n****s ain’t earned that yet
Self-righteous, and entitled
But they swearing on the Bible that they love you
When really they’re no different from all your rivals
But I still don’t wish death on them, I just reflect on them
This is where I get really confused. Okay, so I just don’t understand. None of this is making sense to me. I get how she’s upset but still loves him, how he betrayed her but she’s moving on… I can even see how “not to burn your bridges” applies here. But what does fake friends have anything to do with their failing relationship? How does that apply to anything here? So his friends (or not so) are pretending to love him… but they don’t… because they could be his enemies… but they aren’t… What? Nicki, throw us a bone here. Does your relationship suck or does his relationships with everyone suck? And how to you reflect on people? You’re just thinking really hard on his fake friends? Just reviewing their terrible friendship in your head, you know, the norm.
Yo, people will love you and support you when it’s beneficial
Imma forgive, I won’t forget, but Imma dead the issue
Soon as you out the n****’s lives is when they start to miss you
They see you doing good now it’s kinda hard to diss you
N****s be sick when they remember all the bad they wished you
N****s be mad when they can’t come and live lavish with you
But I sped off in a Benzy, I see the envy when I’m causing a frenzy
So I pop pills for them, cop cribs in the Hills on ‘em
WHAT. Nicki, please, tell me this is a joke. Honestly, read what you just threw down on paper and tell me you were kidding. I get the first two lines. I really do. You’re supportive, you’re forgiving, but you won’t forget the hurt he caused. You’re dropping the subject. It goes with the song, how she’s angry but still loves him. But she goes back to his fake friends like this matters somehow to their personal relationship. This is what throws me off about this whole song, nothing is consistent. Either it’s about his fake friends, or it’s about your relationship. Switching it up in the middle of every stanza is what kills me about this song! It’s about him and her, now it’s about his fake friends, now she’s living the party life? What? How does that apply? What does popping pills have anything to do with the terrible relationship? Or his fake friends? So she’s taking pills with his fake friends? I’m not sure I’m picking up what she’s putting down here.
Let’s not forget the eight stanzas of pure “I still love you/ I still love you” over and over again. I get that it was written that way to be catchy, but eight whole stanzas when there are only debatably two stanzas of actual point to this song? Nicki – this song fell way below my expectations of any genre of music. The repeated chorus could have at least been better than three words, I think she owes her listeners a little more than that.
