No, But Seriously. Why Did Nicki Minaj Just Make a Nazi Music Video?

The PR team whose job it is to keep Nicki Minaj relevant have really been working overtime recently. We’re all still settling down from the twerk avalanche and ongoing media shitstorm that was ‘Anaconda’ and now we have something else to contend with. Her latest music video is a strange and blatant — albeit original — combination of anime and Nazism.

Released this week, the video for ‘Only’ featuring Drake, Lil Wayne and Chris Brown has copped a whole lot of very valid criticism. Not only is the five-minute monstrosity a really annoying lyrics video where words like ‘titties’ come flying towards your face every two seconds, it’s also packed full of troubling motifs and imagery.

This includes warplanes, world maps primed for invasion, Grecian sculptures (an aesthetic much loved by those in the Third Reich), intimidating architecture and tall columns similar to the Reichstag, red banners featuring a black motif reminiscent of a swastika, gas masks, tanks, and soldiers with red armbands. Plus the deeply unnerving image of Chris Brown in an SS uniform. “That’ll be just the thing to restore his credibility,” said presumably all of his publicists for literally no reason.

There’s probably a larger point Minaj is shooting for here. Drake is dressed as the Pope; Lil Wayne is some kind of business man; I assume her line of thinking went like this: ‘something something power — something something leather pant suit — something something Hitler’. Nazism is one of the most tired metaphors around.

In any case, this seems pretty far from being okay.

hey @NICKIMINAJ thanks for the blatant nazi imagery in your new video! really great allusion to persecution &genocide pic.twitter.com/prjM58hhMQ

— Melissa Morgan (@melissamorgs) November 8, 2014

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h/t Jezebel.