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Music

A Year of Lil Wayne: Nicki Minaj's "I Get Crazy"

It's Nicki Minaj, the superb witch.

Day 143: "I Get Crazy" feat. Lil Wayne – Nicki Minaj, Beam Me Up Scotty, 2009

Although Nicki Minaj was introduced on a number of other Lil Wayne projects, the first song of hers I can remember is "I Get Crazy," and what a great way to announce yourself: "I just came out of the motherfucking old school / got my Mac notebook with the Pro Tools." That line is an all-time great opener, not least because it sums Nicki up in a nutshell. She's a New York rapper through and through, with the razor sharp lyrics to back it up, but she also has a modern viewpoint on music (Pro Tools was modern circa 2009). Like Drake, Nicki seems like a force of nature who would have succeeded eventually with or without the Wayne cosign, but also like Drake there's no doubt that she drew some inspiration from Wayne. The wacky split personalities thing feels like her taking Wayne's weirdness a step further. Wayne was a martian. Nicki? She's "got a bad bitch mentality / 'cause I just came from another galaxy."

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Wayne does a great job of repping for Nicki here, rapping just enough of a verse to give the song a nudge but keeping his appearance short. And he goes off! Look how this verse ends:

I ain't crazy, no, yes, I am
Right up in the cuckoo nest I land
I'm fly, now eat my bird shit
Yeah, I'm crazy—crazy 'bout your bitch
Wild animal on my bewildered shit
I love brain so I'm lookin' for a nerd bitch
It's Nicki Minaj, the superb witch
And Weezy F Baby, no, Weezy F (Crazy)

My guy really rhymed "nerd bitch" with "superb witch." And just the fact he called Nicki Minaj a "superb witch" in the first place! What a compliment! This is also a real deep cut for those who follow all the things that the F in Weezy F Baby stands for because it's a minor twist on the formula. And finally, what better line is there than "Right up in the cuckoo nest I land / I'm fly, now eat my bird shit"?

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