I‰’m choosing to write about “Check It Out‰” because it is such a Pop song; a co-writing feature from Pop Legend will.i.am., focus on a sugary beat, heavy on the auto-tune, light on the rapping (though the rapping that‰’s still on the track is as aggressive as ever).

This was Nicki Minaj’s earliest released record (not counting her EPs). While other songs on Pink Friday like “Fly‰” and “Save Me‰” were very poppy in a half-R&B sort of way, this point in Nicki‰’s career was before the bubblegum sugar that was “Starships‰” and “Super Bass‰Û, and before the complete transgression of that genre in “Anaconda‰Û.

But why focus on one of the poppiest, happiest tunes off of Nicki‰’s album, over her grittier works like “Did It On ‰Em‰Û? I think it‰’s because people generally associate Nicki with her hyper-aggressive, hyper-masculine “Roman Zolanski‰” type personas more than they do with Barbie, who exists mostly within her radio friendly songs.

However, while I would undoubtedly categorize this song as a Pop piece, I think that Roman breaks through her shiny Barbie exterior in “Check It Out‰Û.

And so, “Check It Out‰” exists. It exists on the sampled riff of Buggles‰’ “Video Killed the Radio Star‰Û, not just as a nod but as a laugh in its face. Rather than subsisting on the most Critical Approach towards What is Wrong with Music These Days in the original song, Nicki and will.i.am say “Hey you, archaic new wave song, we are the video star. We have outshone you, and look at our success‰Û.

There‰’s this great space metaphor in Nicki‰’s line “in my space shuttle and I‰’m not coming down‰” right before “Sometimes it‰’s just me and all my bottles all alone/I ain‰’t comin‰’ back this time‰” which is strangely bittersweet for a pop song brimming with ego.

I can‰’t help but think this space metaphor relates to escape the same way P-Funk, a band devoted to escapism away from the constraints of the white hegemonic music industry, did. Parliament broke grounds by equating outer space to escaping the box in which they felt constrained to adhere to either a complete denial of or adherence to their own blackness. I could definitely see Nicki contributing to the long tradition of spacey figurative language first set off by Parliament, and later appropriated into genres like Hip Hop and R&B.

And then, will.i.am says “Dummies they can‰’t touch me cuz I‰’m floatin‰’ sky high/I stay n****rific, you don‰’t need to ask why‰Û, which is really exciting to me. Not only did he reclaim that slur for himself, but you made it into an adverb. Then, you rolled that word into a line dealing with the same futuristic spaceship escape Nicki uses in the first verse of that song. That takes some level of guts.

Nicki herself reclaims “bitch‰Û, and she does it in the first line: “Step up in the party like my name was That Bitch‰” – her title here is That Bitch, not some bitch. She is That Bitch; she is not a participant – she owns this party.

The parallelism that exists in “Check It Out‰” isn‰’t just a stylistic choice – the repetition of these themes throughout the song lends it some credibility, it informs the tone.

Contrast that heaviness with “Sometimes it‰’s just me and all my bottles all alone/I ain‰’t comin‰’ back this time‰Û, some cheeky wordplay on intrust versus interest, and the zinger that is “Exclamation ‰ÛÒ just for emphasis‰Û. I think that while Nicki‰’s introduction, adds depth and longevity to a song that has no other hint of the “lonely but free‰” sentiment in it, the latter two add some very intentionally shallow wit to the song.

While I wouldn‰’t go so far as to say that these lines are a commentary on their own shallow state, I would say that Nicki threw them next to her more powerful verses for a reason, if only to highlight their contrast even more. These sassy one-offs could just be another element of her already complex personas, for all we know.

Unfortunately, the accompanying video is fairly awful as it‰’s incredibly Orientalist and frames the video with some weird stereotype about how “conformist‰” and “brainwashed‰” Asian people are. Honestly, I feel the need to bring this up because I don‰’t want to let Nicki Minaj off the hook for cultural appropriation after I just praised the depth of this song; ignoring those faults is something that really disgusts me in music writing in particular.

Does the racist video negate the fact that Nicki Minaj and will.i.am are still artists with important things to say and prove? No. Does it mean that they‰’re inhuman or unlistenable? Not necessarily, depending on your tolerance for problematic faves. Does it mean I can like things while acknowledging that they‰’re problematic? Yes, obviously.

So while the video is both racist and appropriative, I want to concentrate in this particular article on what the song itself is saying, and who its audience is, and why it samples the Buggles‰’ riff. So with that, I give you “Check It Out‰” by Nicki Minaj featuring will.i.am.