Sequel to ‘Pink Friday’ lacks substance

The highly anticipated second album “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” by female rap artist Nicki Minaj truly lacks any solid substance to draw in listeners.

Promoted strongly through social networks like Facebook, “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” hit record store shelves on April 3, however, the album failed to have the same success as Minaj’s first album “Pink Friday.”

While the album is filled with 19 tracks, none of the songs generate any type of direction or message other than Minaj’s boasting of how much better she is than her competition and with her enjoyment of partying.

Minaj’s cockiness is clearly shown in the album’s first song “Roman Holiday,” as she uses her unique deep pitched voice with watered down metaphors to describe how she is the best female rapper in the music industry.

Minaj is known to use different alter egos in her songs as she is able to convert her normal voice into different sounding voices. This ability is used heavily in this album.

She continues to use her alter egos to carry out the same message of how great she is throughout the album’s next five tracks, with fellow rappers Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, 2 Chainz and Cam’Ron contributing their efforts.

Despite Minaj using typical metaphorical punch lines heard in many of today’s rap songs, she brings her best flow when others are featured on a song.

One example of this is on the song “Champion” featuring Drake, Young Jeezy and Nas, as she is able to hold her own on the song as she describes her rough upbringing in Queens, N.Y. with a flow that doesn’t consist of her unique, awkward sounding voice.

Many of the beats sound the same as they are either upbeat with sound effects such as sirens in the background or have a techno influenced sound.

Due to the lack of originality of the beats, the album fails to grab the listener, though Minaj is also at fault as she is unable to bring a consistent or creative approach to her latest work.