The purpose behind Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’
Nicki Minaj, before embracing her role as a hype woman for one Donald J Trump, was once known as the Queen of Rap. Her pop-friendly take on the form helped to drive it into the mainstream, and it made her a star.
One of Minaj’s biggest songs is ‘Anaconda,’ which, upon its release in 2014, became her best-performing track on the singles charts, reaching number two in America and entering the top ten in several countries around the world. She would only achieve a number one single years later, with ‘Say So’ and ‘Trollz’ each hitting the top spot at different points in 2020.
‘Anaconda’ has been widely understood as a response to the famous Sir Mix-a-Lot song ‘Baby Got Back,’ which famously objectified women and especially their rear ends. Despite the controversy that the song spawned following its 1992 release, it was hugely popular, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and spending five weeks there.
Sir Mix-a-Lot has always asserted that ‘Baby Got Back’ should be understood in positive terms, a song in which he celebrates curves as opposed to skinniness. “The song doesn’t just say I like large butts, you know?” he argued during a 1992 interview with Spin. “The song is talking about women who damn near kill themselves to try to look like these beanpole models that you see in Vogue magazine.”
Whether or not one can take Mix-a-Lot at his word, the song is clearly also an expression of the pleasure that women’s bodies specifically bring him. Minaj, in ‘Anaconda,’ seeks to invert the sentiment of ‘Baby Got Back,’ speaking from a female perspective rather than that of a lustful male narrator.
“I wanted to create a song that embraced curvy women,” she remarked to Complex in 2014. “I wanted to be sexual but be playful with it. And I wanted it to be so melodic that even if you don’t understand English you could still go along with the melody and you would have no idea about all the raunchy shit I’m saying—I get a kick out of that.”
Still, despite the serious sentiment at the song’s heart, Minaj admitted that she was just having fun on ‘Anaconda.’ “It was simple to write,” she said. “I just created the melody and then I let the words happen. I started laughing when I said, ‘Boy toy named Troy.’ That whole song, I was just being dumb. It was a joke.”
To ensure the connection to ‘Baby Got Back’ was unmissable, ‘Anaconda’ heavily samples from Mix-a-Lot’s song, with some sampled lyrics giving Minaj’s song its title: “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hun.”
Even though one could read ‘Anaconda’ as being somewhat in tension with ‘Baby Got Back,’ Sir Mix-a-Lot has claimed to be a fan of Minaj’s track. During a Reddit Ask Me Anything session in 2014, he posted, “I think it’s cool, she took part of the song, she made a Nicki Minaj song. I love the track, I have fun listening to the track, it’s crazy as hell.”