Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Sep 10, 2018On Queen, Nicki spends a lot of time ordering beheadings--which are fun, but get old quick--rather than showing us why she is and should be queen. Here's to hoping the next album gives us a more earnest, more raw glimpse of the head that wears the crown.
-
Aug 20, 2018When Minaj leans into her untouchable strengths as a rapper, things get really exciting and an album of tracks as strong as "LLC" or "Barbie Dreams" would be one for the books. As it stands, however, Queen is another chapter of Minaj's good but largely meandering and inconsistent full-length album output.
-
Aug 14, 2018There are enough good songs to give Queen a pass, but if it’s going to be 19 tracks, it needs to be more consistently awesome.
-
Aug 14, 2018It’s refreshingly spur-of-the-moment on an album that’s let down by constant overthinking and underestimating of her abilities. If Minaj wants to make a mission statement of an album, worthy of this title, she needs to figure out a mission statement for herself.
-
Aug 13, 2018The fuddy-duddy stance--thou shalt rise from the streets and compose by hand with paper and pen--feels bitterly defensive, even when Minaj lives up to her boasts about her hard-won craft, which on Queen is almost all the time.
-
Aug 13, 2018Unfortunately, in trying to take on all comers at once, there are parts of Queen that feel like an overreach. There is a better ten track effort hiding in Queen, but you get the impression Nicki kept tracks like ‘Miami’ to hedge her bets in a bid for streaming success. The Queen is back, but only just.
-
Aug 13, 2018There are some very strong tracks here and Minaj’s flow remains utterly unique, even if she only puts it to use disparaging her subjects. She still has a good case to be the queen, but uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, perhaps.
-
Aug 20, 2018Queen's title implies it's meant to function as a coronation for one of the biggest rappers ever, but it's more the sound of Minaj fighting to keep that crown on her head.
-
Aug 16, 2018Except for standouts “Barbie Dreams,” “Good Form,” and “Chun-Li,” Queen is full of songs that Nicki has more or less done previously and in better ways. It’s not that Nicki has become a worse rapper (“Lara been Croft” jokes aside) or that the production is bad, it’s that everything here is only adequate--nothing pops, no chances are taken, and there isn’t any notable magic in these records.
-
Aug 13, 2018Minaj is obviously capable of backing up all the posturing. ... But Queen also finds Minaj falling back on some frustratingly familiar shortcomings. The album loses its momentum whenever it aims for the pop charts.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 1,459 out of 1891
-
Mixed: 73 out of 1891
-
Negative: 359 out of 1891
-
Aug 10, 2018
-
Aug 10, 2018Is the Nicki best album, Although many compare it with other rapers (Cardi B) this album has a lot of musical rap art
-
Aug 10, 2018