OkayMuva: The Radical Thing About Remy Ma + Nicki Minaj's Beef

Artwork of 'OkayMuva' x Myles Johnson courtesy of Jayy Dodd for Okayplayer.

Allow us to introduce you to our newest series: OkayMuva. This is a fresh, bold and critical look at the week’s hottest topics by Myles E. Johnson aka @HausMuva.

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My great-great-great-grandmother who was born a slave was not an easy going woman. My great-great-grandmother who died during childbirth was not an easy going woman. My great-grandmother and my grandmother were not easy going women. My mother was not an easy going woman. My sister was not an easy going woman.

And when I was born and was in search for gender performances that most fit and served who I felt I was to be, I arrived at a healthy femininity. I had no use in being an easy going, agreeable, honey-dipped black femme man.

This is true amongst a lot of black people in the world that practice a feminine gender performance. Domination's idea of femininity has long been confined to a space of inherent vulnerability and softness. The idea is if you practice any type of stereotypical femininity that you are inherently more kind, more soft and more vulnerable than those that do not. People would often assume my incapability to fight, physically and intellectually, because of my practiced femininity. On the contrast, I know black women of all different gender performances, experiences, and histories that have been pushed into spaces to be more delicate, more quiet and softer than what was true to their instincts. We've bonded over our shared experiences with domination's desire to muzzle us and our shared transgressions.

On Remy Ma's scathing diss track to Nicki Minaj, "ShETHER," she raps, "Bloodbath when I catch you" to her opponent. The Bronx, New York rapper released the song littered with rumors and references about Nicki Minaj, plus she included some of the most violent imagery she could have conjured up. She concludes, saying, "A real red carpet," and the moment had the internet explode instantly. Discussions about who won and who would be the "Queen of Rap" now that Remy Ma so directly attacked the most prominent female rapper in the music industry flooded Twitter timelines and became think pieces for random publications.

The first thing I thought about when I heard Remy Ma's deep, husky, New York-born-and-bred voice ride a relentless Ron Browz beat was that she was crafting images fit for a Wes Craven film. I thought about her reality television storylines where she chronicled her miscarriage. I thought about the tender moments she has shared with the public of her son and her husband. And to know that the same woman with that much softness and vulnerability was also able to locate a brutal brand of femininity felt wonderfully transgressive.

Photo of Remy Ma + Nicki Minaj courtesy of The Daily Beast.

Often in the white supremacist imagination, blackness does something strange to gender and humanity in general. Namely, it strips it away. Black people turn into black bodies that are simply just symbols for danger. We're seen as uber violent and sexualized things, and often this lack of policing a white imagination has cost us our safety and lives. In order to counteract this dangerous imaging of black bodies, black people have often performed respectability politics and binary gender expectations in an effort to assert our humanity, and consequently, ensure our safety. As we know, men have been lynched in suits and women have been killed in high heels and lipstick with soft voices.

To put it bluntly, this adherent to domination has habitually failed us.

When we look at Nicki Minaj with her barely-there outfits and her ability to shape shift, we also have to observe her as both a feminist and as a patriarchal figure. Yes, you can be both. Certain actions and practices that Nicki Minaj participates in only perpetuate patriarchal ideas around gender and performance (ex. her rape line in "Lookin' Ass N***a," her consistent collusion with domination through language that degrades other women + homophobia in lyrics and celebration of materialism).

However, you also have to commend Minaj for how dynamic she has been able to be. Regardless if you enjoy the music or not, the fact that she has been able to be an emotionally vulnerable woman in songs like "Pills 'N Potion," youthful and fun like on "Starships," cartoonish and rage-induced like her verse on "Monster," and simply the boss, like on tracks like "I Am Your Leader — Nicki Minaj has constantly decided against the boxes that she might be asked to fit inside of and stay in by the recording industry.

The goal of a feminist practice isn't to be perfect or for it to be easily understood by those gazing at it. Instead, it is best to leave the person practicing it whole and not harming others. It doesn't mean agreeing with everyone or performing respectability in order for it to appear that you have a perfect politic, theory or conflict-less life. It is a type of freedom and radicalism that we may not arrive at, but strive for. And yes, sometimes, there is beef. This is what I learned from both of these young black women during this magical musical moment.

For me, listening to "ShETHER" reminded me that gender and identity belonged to me, not the public. We should be able to be as vicious and as soft as we find suitable for ourselves, and those performances do not have to be static. We can change our minds and be sensual people that want to explore softness and sexuality and be violent, vicious people that desire to defend our spots in our given career. This beef reminded me that once you reject the script of what domination has given you, you are then free to be what it is you desire to be. No matter if Nicki Minaj or Remy Ma comes out the winner of this battle, they both won the game of rejecting tropes of how they should perform their gender and instead doing what was on their hearts... and putting it on wax.

Myles E. Johnson is an Atlanta, Georgia-based storyteller. He is also the creator of the literary project, Dear Giovanni. You can follow him on Twitter @HausMuva.