Good context for how overdue Nicki Minaj’s concert Saturday night at Target Center was: The last time the hip-hop queen performed in the Twin Cities was 13 years ago as the opening act for Britney Spears.
While Spears has endured well-publicized ups and downs since that poorly attended Xcel Energy Center show in 2011, Minaj has mostly only had ups in her career.
She has been one of the top-selling artists in pop music of the past decade, racking up three No. 1 albums (the most ever by a female rapper) and 23 top-10 singles (same). Her success — and her feminine and LGBTQ icon status, too — rocketed further last year via her smash-hit “Barbie World” single with Ice Spice from the “Barbie” movie soundtrack.
Saturday’s nearly sold-out crowd of about 16,000 fans came dressed for the occasion in a sea of pink outfits, including many men. It wasn’t because of Barbie, though. Minaj has been pinkifying the world since her 2010 breakout album, “Pink Friday,” a success she flashed back to in the title of her tour and latest album “Pink Friday 2.”
Some of those fans — especially the ones who hired babysitters — may have been seeing seeing red by the time Minaj finally took the stage. She didn’t go on until 10:10 p.m., more than two hours after the advertised start time with only a DJ filling the gap.
Her scheduled opener, “The Boy Is Mine” co-vocalist Monica, actually performed in a 15-minute break that abruptly came three-quarters of the way through Minaj’s set. Along with a couple long video interludes, Monica’s montage made the concert feel unusually disjointed. Her songs, including “Before You Walk Out of My Life,” also felt mellow and a tad outdated amid Minaj’s recent, fiery hits.
In between those preshow and mid-show lulls, though, Minaj was fully and fiercely present. The Trinidad-born rapper, 41, took the stage in a silvery space-queen outfit to the tune of “I’m the Best,” and she seemed intent on living up to that title.
The second in an unprecedented run of three Target Center concerts in six months headlined by female hip-hop stars — after Doja Cat’s and Ice Spice’s December date, and before Megan Thee Stallion’s May 14 booking — Minaj’s performance boasted a big, bright visual production on par with Doja’s show.
Neon lights were decked out all over the stage (yes, often tinted pink). Dancers and pyro were constantly blowing across the stage. Minaj’s numerous outfits were quite a spectacle, too, from a bejeweled purple bodysuit with matching thigh-high boots near the start to an elegant, flowing red dress donned later for the mellower love songs “Save Me” and the new one “Fallin’ 4 U.”
Minaj wasn’t as tied in with the choreography or as physically hyperactive as Doja was. Her most-cheered dance move may have been a stage-hump in “Pink Birthday,” which rivaled the one Prince offered across the street at First Avenue for movie cameras in 1983. She genuinely seemed to be pouring most of her energy into her vocals instead, and her talent as a rapper and bawdy, tongue-tying lyricist never got lost in the grand visual scheme.
She came on fast and furious on the microphone right away during “Barbie Dangerous” and “Beep Beep.” Kudos to the crowd for keeping up with her rapid delivery and making the latter tune a big singalong. A lot of today’s hot young male rappers, including Travis Scott and Lil Uzi Vert, should take note on how Minaj spit forcefully into her mic all night and did not let her backing tracks do any heavy-lifting for her.
Other impressive runs came later when she ripped through “Red Ruby Da Sleaze” and “Chun-Li” back-to-back under a backdrop of Chinese imagery, and again near show’s end in abbreviated versions of “Super Freaky Girl” and “Anaconda.”
After all the glitz and glamor displayed throughout her show, Minaj made a simpler choice of ripped jeans, white cotton tank top and a (pink) doo-rag on her head when she returned after Monica’s mini-set for a run of hits, including “Starships” and “Everybody.” She came off more down-to-earth, but her finale look also seemed to emphasize there’s a lot more to her stardom than the glitz and glamor.
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