A Black Barbie’s Moment

Chapter 4, “A Black Barbie’s Moment: Nicki Minaj and the Struggle for Cultural Dominance,” explores the only mainstream Black woman rapper in hip-hop from 2009 to 2018, Nicki Minaj, and how she dictated shifts in Black women’s representations that privilege sexual freedom and social dominance for Black girls and women. Using embodied objectification and the symbolic value of Barbie and Cinderella, Minaj’s early music and performances provide a diversity of representation, experience, and desire through which Black women and girls can see themselves and their experiences reflected. Minaj’s later performances, however, engage unwholesome images, challenging audiences to consider sexuality, power, and domination in relation to Black femininity and how memes shift the creation, control, and viral value of Black women’s embodied objectification on social media.