[There was a video here]

Compulsive sneerer/rapper Nicki Minaj was profiled on last night's episode of Nightline. It was not very illuminating, but getting to hear Juju Chang say things like, "She sees herself as a rapper: hardcore," "edgy, adult raps," "her rhythms and rhymes are feminine, yet fierce" and "bossed up," was hilarious. A reel of her square-talkin' narration is above.

[There was a video here]

One point that gay men on Twitter seem to care about (if my @ replies are an indication of what gay men on Twitter care about) is Nicki's sour dismissal of the comparisons to Lady Gaga ("I have my own lane and we never cross — ever!"). Chang bungles this one by citing wigs and "over-the-top costuming," when she easily could have mentioned Gaga and Nicki's shared theater backgrounds, the premium they both place on weirdness (and its often sloppy, vague manifestation), the performance art they enjoy indulging in at awards shows and that Minaj enlisted the man who sculpted Gaga's sound, RedOne, for four cuts on Roman Reloaded. I understand not wanting to be written off as a copycat especially when what you're shilling is eccentricity, and Nicki does plenty of things that Gaga does not, but this moment of colorful, strange ladies in pop is going to only seem more like a unified movement in retrospect. Get with it, Nicki.