What was a Good, Conscious, Woke, Smoove, Red, Black and Green Flag Toting, I am a King of Kemet Bro

I had every intention on unpacking Nicki’s and Nas’s relationship when it first broke that these two were dating. However, capitalism and depression intervened in my ability to deeply unravel and tackle the ignorant perspectives that were spewed out about their alleged relationship. Now that my mind is clear, along with Kelis shedding new light on the Nas, I felt it was important to revisit this topic. With that being said, let’s back up to when it was first rumored that Nicki and Nas were dating. When pictures hit the net of Nicki and Nas, a lot of folks, including myself were shocked that someone like Nas would even entertain someone like Nicki. Nas, a rapper from Queens has built his career and respect from the streets and the masses from being a strong lyricist that captured the raw beauty of Black culture and struggle. Nicki Minaj a rapper from Jamaica Queens, has built her career off of being a free-spirited ghetto Black Girl who invoked the spirit of jezebel with her lyrics and sexy videos.

The reputation of these two conflict each other and thus raised much controversial inner talk and outer talk that questioned, “What was a guy like Nas doing with a girl like Nicki”? I too am guilty of this mindset when I found out the two were allegedly dating. For myself, and I’d argue many Black Womxn, Nas was the pinnacle of impossible nuance, duality and complexity that we all desire. He was the dude from the hood that was smart, smooth, conscious, fine, and could seemingly protect you if some shit was to pop off. He gave us hope that our dreams of being with a “good dude with a lil edge” was not all that impossible. So for many of us that felt so deeply offended by Nas’s choice to date Nicki it was because we felt, rather we wanted to admit it or not, that someone like Nicki was undeserving of a man like Nas. As I sat with this feeling, I wanted to better understand why Nas being with Nicki bothered me so much.

I began to first address what I’ve internalized around Ghetto and Rachet Black Womxnhood. I had to question how I viewed myself and revisit what I believed I deserved from the universe in regards to a romantic partner. I have shared publicly my own insecurities and disbelief in the possibility that a great amazing man could actually love me. Even now writing this, I can feel the hurt connected to that thinking raise up in my chest and I attempt to push it back down by refocusing myself on finishing this blog piece. It is my own self-lived experiences and chit chatting with sistah friends that confirm that many Black Womxn hold deep insecurities in regards to building healthy love. I’d take this a step further and argue that Black Girls who are deemed ghetto, ratchet, sexual and/or are dark skin, plus size may feel these insecurities even more. So it was particularly interesting to see that those who were in disapproval of this pair were interestingly Black Womxn whom Nicki Minaj reflected. More interestingly, not only were these Black Womxn that reflected Nicki in many ways, these were also Black Womxn who crushed on Nas and jokingly said, “Thas myyyy MANNN!” Contradictory a lil? So it lead me to question if our issue with Nicki was really an issue with ourselves. Have we shamed or been shamed for parts of our personalities and identities that don't align with standard womxnhood and replaced them for attributes that we believe make us datebale or wifey material? For those who respond by saying, “No, me and Nicki don't and have never had anything in common” then I challenge you to question what do you believe sistahs like Nicki deserve and why do you believe they deserve that? I also want ot be clear in saying that I have many critiques of Nicki, and I am not a fan none whatsoever, but the larger acts of ridicule, lack of protection, and marginalization of sistahs like Nicki was worthy of us unpacking identity and Black Womxnhood that doesn’t look like Claire Huxtable.

The next issue that it worthy of unpacking is our perception of identity at face value and our lack of understanding of nuance. The culture that we live in is so rooted in Eurocentric value systems that only honor good or bad, up or down and not the in betweens or the relationship between the two. Thus we assume that someone like Nas is only what he presents to us and someone like Nicki is only good for bending over and acting bad. Christian politics, which many of us have our roots in, also reinforces binaries such as the Devil and God operating as two separate entities with no relationship. I am not here to convert you away from your religion but rather here to open our eyes to the functionality of binary thinking and how its organized in society. As a result of this, we find it hard to believe good and bad can be present at the same time. This is particularly important for us to grapple with these narrow concepts of identity and humxn complexity especially with Kelis's latest interview with "Hollywood Unlocked" where she details years of abuse from Nas during their marriage. She described Nas as a Dark person who “Drunk too much” and blacked out often and would abuse her in that process. For those of us who ridiculed Nicki off the strength that we believed Nas was this wonderful brotha, we owe Nicki and sistahs like Nicki an apology. We owe Kelis an apology for trying to put them back together in our mind and thinking that Nas was even worthy of a womxn like Kelis. We lastly owe ourselves an apology for believing in and supporting men like Nas who are so broken and hurt that they refuse to and don’t know how to address their own darkness.

Myisha Soule

Owner of soulzandgspotz

Liberating soulz is the soulz component of soulzandgspotz that aims to provide space, conversation, tools, and resources that helps us to clear out the clutter in our spirits.

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