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FACTS OR REACHING?: Nicki Minaj Delivers a Pretty Stellar Performance of “Chun-Li” on SNL; But is Now Being Accused of Cultural Appropriation (WATCH)

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Tonight, Nicki Minaj stormed the SNL stage for their season finale episode, with a show full of kung-fu uniform-clad dancers beneath a Chinese empire to perform an energetic live rendition of her comeback hit, “Chun-Li.” While many of Nicki’s fans enjoyed the performance and felt she did a great job bringing the music video’s kung fu fantasy to life for it’s live television debut, per usual, there’s a group of folks on the internet who aren’t quite happy with Nicki’s elaborate attention to detail.

Almost immediately after the performance, Nicki found herself under fire for perceived cultural appropriation, via social media. For those unfamiliar, The title of the song (Chun-Li) refers to the character from Street Fighter, the first female character in a fighting game, which for normal people, would make complete sense as to why Nicki chose to go the asian route with the tracks visuals. But apparently, not everyone felt that way. “yo @NICKIMINAJ this was effing racist and offensive AF! cultural appropriation for entertainment is not ok!” said one Twitter User, directly tagging the rapper. “So, Nicki Minaj missed ‘Understanding Cultural Appropriation 101’, huh?, Its 2018, sweety..
& The song still makes no sense…. 🙄 #HangItUpFlatScreen” another user wrote.

Well, there’s a couple different reasons that we feel that narrative isn’t really appropriate here. Let’s start with the obvious: we’re talking about a character in a videogame. If we consider Minaj’s new single appropriation, we would implicitly be accepting the premise that Chun-Li is somehow a Chinese cultural touchstone, despite being programmed by a group of American and Japanese men with little regard for political correctness.

Secondly, the song itself barely focuses on Chun-Li at all. Much like 2015’s “Shanghai,” Minaj’s lyrical content is preoccupied with flexing and stunting, notably free of cringe-worthy Orientalism present on songs like Migos’s “Chinatown” (Quavo’s “ching-chong” adlib is painfully ridiculous). The track uses Chun-Li as an avatar of female power, placing her in the company of Lara Croft and Storm. This lends itself to a much more benign reading than Minaj’s detractors have intially suggested.

Lastly, before we let you be the judge…Throughout her career, Nicki Minaj has used Asian culture to amplify her artistic endeavors and her personal aesthetic. (Perhaps because she is from Asian descent.) Anyways, Check out the performance along with a few of the internet reactions below. What do you guys think? FACTS OR REACHING?

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