Nicki Minaj Vs. Missy Elliot

Chelsea Morganelli

Professor Melissa Santos

En 199-003

3/27/15

Blog Post 8

            This week in class a group led the discussion about the reading Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot and Nicki Minaj: Fashionistin’ Black Female Sexuality in Hip-Hop Culture-Girl Power or Overpowered?. Something that I took away from the discussion was how others see Nicki Minaj and Missy Elliot differently. Although they are both in hip hop, Nicki Minaj is seen as very sexy compared to Missy Elliot. Missy Elliot wears baggy clothes and Nicki Minaj wears tight dresses. Their styles are very different, but both signed with fashion industries. In 2002 Missy Elliot signed with Adidas to create her own line of clothing. Adidas clothing are mainly sportswear, which is what Missy Elliot wears the most of. In 2011 Nicki signed with H & M’s Versache collection to have her own fashion collection. Hip hop fashion has definitely changed through the years. There used to be a lot more track suits, baggy pants and heavy gold jewelry. Today’s fashion sense seems to be all about sex appeal. Missy Elliot stuck with her desexualized look while Nicki did the opposite. Both women can be shown as empowering for others by the way they dress. By Missy covering up she can show women that they can too and that they shouldn’t be afraid to dress the way they want to. Nicki does state in the reading, “I made a conscious decision to try to tone down the sexiness. I want people- especially young girls- to know that in life, nothing is going to be based on sex appeal. You’ve got to have something else to go with that” (620). Nicki is known for her sexiness in the way that she dresses, but I’m glad she is being a role model to young girls and toning it down. Missy and Nicki show us that you don’t always have to try to dress sexy to feel good about yourself.

Their music videos are very different from one another as well. Usually in hip hop music videos there is an oversexualized images in them. This is what happens in Nicki Minaj’s videos but not Missy Elliot’s. Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda is one example of how sexualized hip hop music videos are. One of the Missy Elliot music videos the group played for the class showed how Missy focuses more on her choreography in her music videos rather than sex appeal. She wears baggy clothing, while her back up dancers are showing more skin than her. Someone in class said that they didn’t know which one was Missy in the beginning of the video because they all looked the same. You can usually tell who the artist of the video is because they stand out instantly. The main artist is usually in the center and wearing something flashy to show who they are. That’s what I like about Missy’s music videos, they focus more on the message of the song rather than sexualizing the whole video.