On the season 12 premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race last week, Miss Minaj made her main stage debut in a breathtaking red dress and matching hair, with RuPaul declaring it “Nicki Minaj’s Drag Race.” The competing queens were challenged to write and record a rap verse and deliver a choreographed performance in front of the Queen herself.
In the season’s first (of many) twists, Mama Ru revealed that no one would be going home, and instead the top two queens -- Widow Von’Du and Gigi Goode -- would lip sync against each other for the challenge win and a cash tip of $5,000. The song: Nicki Minaj’s multi-platinum 2012 single “Starships.”
After side-splitting lip syncs to “Anaconda” and “Pound the Alarm” in seasons past, the pressure was on Widow and Gigi to deliver a showstopping performance of “Starships,” in front of Nicki herself, no less. Given that the show’s last Nicki Minaj lip sync was a similar electro-pop from the same chart-topping album, “Starships” made an interesting choice, with both queens shutting it down and Widow Von’Du being declared the winner.
Before you go and keep re-watching that lip sync, read up on a few things you might’ve not known about “Starships.”
It completed Nicki’s crossover from hip-hop to pop
Despite the modern popularity of Nicki Minaj’s pop songs, the star's original step toward a pop crossover with 2010's Pink Friday was received to mixed reviews; many fans and critics wondered where the intense rap skills that earned her a spotlight were on the album. With the arrival of her second album Pink Friday ... Roman Reloaded — and singles like “Starships” — in 2011, Nicki had officially become a best-selling pop artist while maintaining her bossed-up rap skills, with legends like Queen Latifah giving her props for singing on her songs.
The producer behind Lady Gaga’s biggest hits helped create it
Pop superproducer RedOne has been behind many of Lady Gaga’s smash records since the beginning of her career, so Minaj recruiting him to create a radio-ready pop hit was a natural choice. With the rising popularity of EDM in the early 2010s, the genre’s emphasis on big-beat production and bass “drops” designed to get your fist pumping started to bleed into popular music, with RedOne’s work on “Starships” serving as a masterclass in marrying two popular sounds of the moment.
Nicki wishes she’d never recorded it
Fans of Nicki Minaj who had been with her since before her mainstream breakout loved her because of her ability to rap better than many of her male counterparts, so when songs like “Starships” came along, many of those fans were understandably upset that she was moving in a more pop-leaning direction. It turns out they were not alone: last month, she revealed that she wishes she’d never recorded “so much of [her] discography,” including songs like “Anaconda,” “Your Love,” and “Starships.” As someone with New York hip-hop roots, it’s not totally surprising that Nicki doesn’t care for the booming electronic beats of “Starships.”
The song came together in two days
Many accomplished artists have the talent of laying down vocals on a track in the studio in one day (Whitney Houston, for example, recorded her Hot 100 hit “How Will I Know?” in one take); if the artist teams up with the right producers, the song can often be ready for release in less than 24 hours. That was what audio engineer Trevor Muzzy said about the creation of “Starships”: the song was born after a “two-day process” of RedOne and Muzzy recording Nicki’s vocals and mixing and mastering the track the next day.
Nicki and the “Starships” team faced a copyright infringement lawsuit
In 2013, a musician by the name of Clive Tanaka filed a lawsuit against Minaj, RedOne, and songwriters Carl Falk, Wayne Hector, and Rami Yacoub for allegedly stealing one of his songs to create “Starships”’ melody. “Neu Chicago,” the song in question, gained popularity in 2011 after being used in TV commercials in Sweden, where both RedOne and Falk were claimed to be living at the time. The case was eventually dropped in 2014, but not before Tanaka could call out the similarities between the two songs.
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