Lookin’, As N-Words: New Nicki Minaj Mash-Up Video Might Be Better Than The Original

Nicki Minaj has been all about courting controversy with the release of “Lookin’ A** N****,” but one filmmaker has done her one step better, taking Nicki’s song and pairing it with an even more controversial video. The result: yet another of those things the internet was made for.

“Lookin’ A** N****” grabbed a ton of attention upon release, with Minaj having paired the single with an iconic picture of civil rights leader Malcolm X. The rap star came under fire once the single’s artwork was revealed, with activists claiming that Nicki was “disrespecting Malcolm X, Black History, and Black People.”

Now, filmmaker Pierre Bennu has taken Minaj’s single and paired it with a section from “Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat,” a 1941 cartoon, which relies on some of the more offensive stereotypes about African Americans. The video is available to view here, but it requires a password, and that password is “selfhate.”

The cartoon short shows a variety of degrading black caricatures – the residents of Lazy Town – enthralled by the arrival of a sophisticated, light-skinned urbanite from Harlem. Paired with Minaj’s track, it’s seemingly no question who best represents Nicki in the cartoon and who represents the “lookin’ a** n*****” she addresses.

The resulting juxtaposition, pointed out to us by Colorlines, is sure to provoke thought. It also provides an uncomfortable look into America’s troubled race history (there was, unfortunately, no internet at the time, and thus no That’s-Racist-Kid.gif) and may draw into greater focus the difficulty some had with Minaj pairing an image of Malcolm X with repeated utterances of – for lack of a better term, since we are apparently all third-graders in this culture – “The N-Word.”

Commenting on the mashup, Bennu declined to say too much, instead letting the piece speak for itself.

“Art is a conversation,” Bennu said on the Vimeo page for the video. “If you’re an artist & have something to say, say it with your work. Here is what Nicki Minaj’s use of Malcolm X’s image on her new single/video ‘Lookin’ A** N****’ inspired in me.”

Bennu meant the piece to be his own commentary on the controversy surrounding Nicki’s newest single, but the filmmaker may have outdone even Minaj’s own videographers. The official video played on a number of hip-hop video tropes, with ample supply of shots of Nicki’s equally ample frame. Not that the “Lookin’ A** N****” video is awful – the sere background largely matches the spare track – but the “commentary” enabled by Bennu’s take is just icing on the cake.

Also, the “shoot rap video in the desert” thing has been done to death. The year 2000 called; it said it’s sending Mystikal over to pick up its hip-hop video blueprints.

Getting her video shown up won’t likely slow Minaj down, though. Her forthcoming album, titled Pink Planet, is sure to contain many a chart-topper, and she’ll make her movie debut later this year alongside Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton in The Other Woman.