Hip-hop darling Nicki Minaj released her debut album Pink Friday in November 2010.  Minaj has been featured on other artists' tracks ranging from Ludacris' "My Chick Bad" to multiple appearances on Kanye West's latest masterpiece. She even took high honors at last year's BET Awards, picking up both the "Best Female Hip-Hop Artist" and "Best New Artist" awards.

In Pink Friday, Minaj does a fantastic job at showing her depth. Many tracks deal with issues personal to the artist. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Minaj explained her hopes of appealing to women on a deeper level with emotional themes rather than the usual, sexually explicit lyrics spouted by female rappers before her. Minaj said in the interview, "I felt like for so many years I was the girl who did the catchy little raps, and it's time for me now to tell my story, and in telling my story, I'm really telling every girl's story."

Minaj as an artist has great style. She raps with a quick cadence and likes to play with tone, sometimes growling out a rhyme and never afraid to punctuate her point with a shout. On tracks like "Did It on Em" and "Roman's Revenge," Minaj has that hardcore, gangster attitude reminiscent of Lil' Kim in her Junior Mafia days. On "Fly," a duet with Rihanna, Minaj conveys her unwavering desire to succeed, pushing past obstacles and refusing to be defined. She gets the opportunity to show off her singing talents too, allowing listeners to savor her voice on tracks like "Right Thru Me" and "Blazin."

As uplifting as the album's venerable appeal to women is, Pink Friday falls short of creating replay value. Many tracks begin with great promise, sampling from ‘80s hits like the Buggle's "Video Killed the Radio Star" and Prince's "Darling Nikki," but they don't seem to develop into anything spectacular. "Save Me" begins with an up-tempo trance beat, which is exciting to think of entwining two genres usually at odds with each other, but the beat takes a back seat as the verse begins and returns only twice after.

Pink Friday clocks in at just short of an hour and in its deluxe form, consists of 18 tracks. Overall, the album is a must-have for hip-hop fans, if mostly because Minaj fills the tremendous lack of great female hip-hop artists. Expect to see more in the future from this 26-year-old rising star, who last year became the first artist to have seven Billboard Hot 100 hits at the same time. Yeah, she did it on ‘em.