I heard that song she did with Jay Sean yesterday. It was still awful…

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[4.56]

Jer Fairall: As much as I’ve spent the last seven or eight months waiting for “Love the Way You Lie” to finally go away, I wasn’t seeking its obliteration in the form of what I imagine is the first in an impending onslaught of mirthless wannabes.
[4]

Mallory O’Donnell: An adult contemporary hip-hopesque ballad heated to lukewarm by the four most overrated lips in rap? Hmm, think I’ll pass.
[1]

Anthony Easton: Does Nick’s flow only work when she is giving more information then we can receive? Because there is something about the slowness of this that seems a failure on Minaj’s part. Would have been more interesting if they switched the parts, but points for doing what is unexpected (it’s also notable how carefully and how comfortably she constructs examples of masculine excess).
[8]

Martin Skidmore: I’m a huge fan of Minaj, but this is very disappointing. She sings quite a lot of it, sounding nasal and flat and not conveying any feelings. Her rap, about her struggles and now success, is lyrically restrained to the point of dullness, which is the last thing I expect from her. Perhaps she is only going to be great on guest shots, sadly — maybe she only feels able to let loose in such contexts.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The world needs Minaj singing like it needs more Drake guest appearances.
[5]

Al Shipley: The first time I heard half of this on the radio, I thought it was a Drake song and kept trying to figure out who the unfortunate hook girl was — maybe Chrisette Michele with a headcold? The rapper with a thousand voices also has at least 3 different singing voices, and they’re all horrid. In fact, it’s only when Nicki drops the valley girl accent and tries to get serious that it becomes clear just what a vapid airhead she really is, spouting more eye-rollingly earnest platitudes about struggle and success than even Drake here. It all just makes me pissed off that these vocals are accompanied by probably my favorite beat on rap radio at the moment, by T-Minus of Ludacris’s “How Low” fame.
[5]

Erick Bieritz: There’s a good concept here, but it evaporates into vague self-empowerment, boasting, Hollywood and haters — just the sort of thing weak rappers depend on and Nicki shouldn’t really need. It’s understandable that she wants to avoid being pigeonholed, but creating solemn, inoffensive pabulum that eschews holes entirely isn’t helping.
[5]

Zach Lyon: I like Nicki’s verse more than I probably should (“I sprinkle holy water upon a vampire”…? Why?), even the hashtags which she’s now doing some weird things with (#yes, #yes, #me, #we). Her monotony in the chorus seemed all sorts of ironic over the line “in this moment I just feel so alive. alive. alive.” but it’s grown on me. And then Drake kicks off with his signature UNGGH as if people want to hear that in EVERY SONG ON THE RADIO (three times in “Aston Martin Music”!) and it gets a little more mediocre. It doesn’t really matter, the production is so low-key and dead that the whole thing fails to launch.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: “I swear this shit is as fun as it looks”, eh? That’s a shame.
[4]