Singer-rapper Nicki Minaj can add “Karate Kid” to her growing list of alter egos (which already includes “Harajuku Barbie,” Freddy Krueger, and “Roman Zolanski”).
The glossy new video for her hit single, “Your Love,” directed by Lil X (a protégé of legendary hip-hop video director Hype Williams), plays out like an R&B Shakespearean tragedy set in Japan: Minaj portrays a sexy samurai-in-training with the hots for her sensei. Unfortunately for the singer, so does a fellow student, and it’s a duel to the death for their master’s heart. How do Minaj’s sword-wielding skills measure up?Watch the video below and find out!
While the Annie Lennox-sampling “Your Love” currently sits atop Billboard’s rap chart for the second week in a row, Minaj reveals that the hit was actually an accidental single.
“I was not planning on putting the song out at all,” Minaj, who appeared in SPIN’S Breaking Out section earlier this year, told MTV News. “But then I heard it one day, somebody told me it was online. And I was like, ‘No way, no way in the world that song is out.’ I went and listened to it and was really upset. It wasn’t mixed, it wasn’t finished, it wasn’t anything — I wasn’t gonna use it at all. But then radio started playing it.”
The singer recently revealed that her much-anticipated debut solo album would be out November 23, and that it’s coming along “just spectacular.”
What do you think of the new video and single?Let us know in the comments section!
Watch: Nicki Minaj, “Your Love”
