BY MELISSA RUGGIERI
If anyone can stalk a stage, it’s Nicki Minaj.
She’ll bat her eyelashes at you one second and shoot a death glare the next.
But one reason that Minaj is so undeniably magnetic is because she keeps you guessing.
She often breaks character, sliding in a sly grin while detonating a cold stare.
She’s girly, fluttering her bejeweled nails and donning a demure pink gown to perform a series of heartfelt ballads. But she can bark a blue streak and admonish her male fans for not treating their women like (insert descriptor that begins with an M and ends with an -ing) queens.
“As soon as something goes wrong, who you run to? You big…baby. You better kiss the (insert same descriptor) ground she walks on,” she scolded.
Minaj’s performance Sunday night at Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood – she’s about halfway through the U.S. leg of her “Pinkprint” tour – contained every element that has made the Trinidad-born, Queens-bred multi-hyphenate a chameleonic superstar.
While any rapper – male or female – needs to duck for cover when Minaj uncorks one of her blistering rhymes, as in the middle of “Flawless” or the mixtape fave “Itty Bitty Piggy,” she is, at her core, a pop artist.
The Lakewood crowd, which filled all but a few patches of the lawn, was a diverse showing of black and white, middle-aged and millennial.
When Minaj, 32, told the adoring throng, “This is one of the first places that showed me love,” the roar of a response confirmed that this has long been a Minaj-friendly city, before the Rihanna and Beyonce collaborations and MTV coronations.
But that crossover to Top 40, such as her musical ménage à trois with Jessie J and Ariana Grande on “Bang Bang” (the only disappointment in Minaj’s set that was used merely as a recorded dance number for her inexhaustible quartet of female hoofers) has expanded her reach to nearly 20 million Twitter followers territory.
True to her status, Minaj’s performance featured numerous costume changes – most of them bikini-like ensembles that spotlighted her ample assets and tiny waist – a trio of musicians (two keyboardists and a drummer) and a DJ sprawled across a riser beneath a stage-length video screen, and enough lasers and lights to rival any production from her pop peers.
From the somewhat subdued opener “All Things Go” to the saucy “Feeling Myself,” which featured Minaj’s unapologetic writhing, to the gliding finger-snapper “Moment 4 Life,” Minaj reveled in her own musical diversity.
She primarily wears a headset mic so her hands are free to punctuate the air as she raps and sings (like any true New Yorker). Also, Minaj’s ability to fall into step with her dance crew, whether for the backside bouncing “Dance (A$$) or the raunchy thrusting she engaged in during “Anaconda,” works easier without clutching a microphone.
But, when Minaj changed into the aforementioned fuchsia dress for “Pills and Potions,” a gliding ballad powered by a gently knocking beat, it signaled yet another facet of Minaj – introspection.
While many in the crowd turned their attention to their phones as soon as the tempo slowed, Minaj, not long after power-lunged pal Monica surprised fans with a rendition of “So Gone,” displayed her own vocal dexterity with “Save Me,” from her 2010 debut, and “Grand Piano.”
Fans accustomed to her club bangers didn’t have to wait long until she returned in a glittery pink thigh-and-breast-baring ensemble with fierce lace-up boots for “Super Bass,” the perfect melding of her pop instincts and laser-like rapping skills.
She thrilled the crowd with an extensive dive into her back catalog, including snippets of “BedRock” and “40 Bars,” and seemingly would have stayed on stage all night if time permitted.
While Minaj and her silver tongue with the poison tip perch atop the rap throne – rightfully so – she’s opened her “Pinkprint” tour to a parade of other talent.
DeJ Loaf and Tinashe were first to hit the stage, before Rae Sremmurd got the party started by tossing beach balls into the crowd and launching their 15-minute set with their platinum-selling hit, "No Flex Zone."
The slight rappers - Khalif "Swae Lee" Brown and Aaquil "Slim Jimmy" Brown – are brothers from Mississippi, now based in Atlanta, who, with the help of producer Mike Will Made It, have created an appealing combo of snappy verses and sing-song-y choruses.They were commanding and aggressive as they paced the stage during “My X” and “Come Get Her,” and even managed to put the posse hanging at stage right to good use and have them sing and dance along.
Minaj's is-he-or-isn't-he beau Meek Mill turned out a 30-minute performance that included some live instrumentation hidden behind a backdrop that doubled as a video screen and a visit from new Atlanta rap royalty.
Bass intense enough to make your skin vibrate accompanied “F You,” Meek Mill’s feature with Yo Gotti, and a pretty piano melody highlighted “Levels.”
But the rapper, clad in black with gold chains hanging from his neck, incited the already-pumped crowd when he introduced Migos, who flowed through their “Handsome and Wealthy.”
While “House Party” contained plenty of noisy fun, the highlight of Meek Mill’s set was when he asked the crowd to “represent for the ones we lost,” then turned his back and rapped “Miss My Dawgs” to a photo of his father, who was shot to death when the rapper was 5 years old.
For all of the success that Mill and Minaj have earned with rowdy club jams, it was the quietest moments that spotlighted their depth.
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