AN OLD BLUEPRINT FOR TRIVIAL CONTROVERSY

In an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday, Minaj discussed why she wore the shocking outfit, showed up with an actor dressed like a pope, and orchestrated a performance of her songs "Roman's Revenge" and "Roman Holiday" that mocked an exorcism, featured dancing monks, involved a levitation, and depicted altar boys kneeling in front of scantily-clad women. The character Roman Zolanksi is one of Minaj's alter egos.

 "You know how people write plays and movies? That's what I did," Minaj told the Associated Press. "I wrote that and I gave the world a tiny little preview of what was to come. And so I have to perform it on the set in which it would be in the movie, right?" she said, dismissing her critics.

Niki Minaj [photo:Kevin Winter/Getty Images]

She added, "I don't know what is the big issue?" 

-Billy Johnson Jr.

What has been will be again,

what has been done will be done again;

there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

Niki Minaj's 2012 Grammy performance was a page right out of the book of  MDNA. Madonna's "Like A Prayer" is a precursor to this type of performance by artists such as Lady Gaga.

In Madonna's video she witnesses a murder, runs into a church in a brown slip, kisses a statue of a saint, makes love with a black man on a church pew, dances in front of burning crosses, sings with a church choir, and shows bleeding stigmata on both palms as though she had survived a crucifixion. Only Madonna could pull this video off -- it is stormy, mysterious, tragic, violent, dark, and exciting.

....By this point in her career, Madonna realized that the more scandalous the project, the more successful it would be. She was clearly begging for either the KKK or the "moral majority" to kick up a fuss.

"The Madonna/Pepsi Controversy" from Madonna: Blonde Ambition Mark Bego (New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992)

It's a shame that, now more than ever, this "shock rock" mentality overshadows great artists with sincere messages.