In the new Nicki Minaj video, Nicki is apparently involved in a love triangle with Nas, who buys her a car, and Chris Brown, who wears a jacket that looks like it's made out of boxer shorts. She's kissing Nas at the end, and it's like, "Phew, good choice!" But then there's a full moon and Nicki looks over Nas's shoulder and makes a crazy face into the camera like she's going to turn into a werewolf or a vampire or something like Michael Jackson in "Thriller" and then you wish she had chosen Chris Brown.

Nicki Minaj was six years old in 1990, when Island Records released Lin Que's first album, "Rebel Soul." Lin herself was then only 18. She was a member of the Black Nationalist group X Clan and was known as Isis. Just a year removed from high school, she traveled the world, meeting celebrities like Prince and Diana Ross. “I got bit by that bug, you know?” Lin told me on the phone last spring. “I’m a teenager and I want to be a star—but I don’t know shit.”

What she didn’t know would eventually hurt her. By 1997, Lin had signed three additional record deals, but "Rebel Soul" [...]

Natasha: Okay, what did you think of Techno Roman Madonna and her 13th legion last night?

Julie: Well, to me, Madonna is like the Catholic Church or Penn State. I’ll defend anything she does, even when she's guilty. I’m loyal to the institution.

Natasha: What did you think of her football fruits?

Julie: I thought they were great.

Natasha: DON'T LIE!!

Julie: I thought she should have worn different shoes.

Natasha: This is like when the Catholic Church or Penn State blamed a sex abuse scandal on a couple bad apples!

Julie: The medley was tight, the concepts were good, it looked great and I'd say she sounded [...]

Just in time for Valentine's Day: Matching Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj softcore robot Barbie sex-dolls. Again, Nicki Minaj kinda weirds me out with the Marcel-Marceau stuff. But, in this track that came out early this week and has, unexpectedly, been growing on me ever since, she doesn't shrink an inch next to Mariah and her rhymes are good. And then, at the end, the video's director, Mariah's husband Nick Cannon, pays homage to his starmaking turn in 2002's Drumline. Hammy stuff. But… oddly and inexplicably? I like it.

This new Madonna video, in which M.I.A. appears (and doesn't do much, along with Nicki Minaj), is not as good as M.I.A.'s new video, "Bad Girls." Considering this, and also the great video Jay-Z and Kanye West made for their song "Otis" last summer, it seems that the Bay Area hip-hop subculture known as "hyphy," which peaked four or five years ago, is having its most lasting cultural impact in the phenomena of the dangerous-looking car tricks known as "ghost riding."

I've been waiting for this. Yo Gotti is an underrated rapper from Memphis. His song "5 Star Chick" was a hit down south this summer. Now here's a video for the remix featuring Gucci Mane, Trina and Nicki Minaj. The beat's the thing, reminiscent as it is of Usher, Ludacris and Lil Jon's smash, "Yeah," from 2004 and Cadillac Don's little-known but much-awesome and often copied "Peanut and Jelly" from 2006. And Gotti's voice is enticingly gruff. But verse-wise, the ladies steal the show. Trina rhymes like she's got six dudes licking whip-cream off her toes, while Nicki Minaj (quelle scandale!) has an epiphany that her boyfriend [...]