New Videos: Nicki Minaj Fights, T.I. Rocks

Nicki Minaj's "Right Thru Me" is her second video to drop this week ("Check It Out," her Buggles-sampling collabo with Will.i.am, landed Monday), and while the music itself is almost balladesque, Nicki's raps are rapid-fire, and she spends more than half of this clip arguing with her suave and sculpted boyfriend in a variety of opulent domestic settings. (There are also bits of reconciliation — and hazy shots of a bikini-clad Minaj lip-synching in the shower.)

Photos: The Fashion of Nicki Minaj

"Ya Hear Me" is presumably T.I.'s last video to drop before he heads back to prison. It's a simple performance clip, with the MC joined by a Funkadelicized rock band and the occasional dancing woman, probably thrown together to keep the buzz up in advance of the still-unscheduled release of his long-delayed next LP (formerly called King Uncaged, since changed to No Mercy). "I ain't lookin' for no trouble," T.I. Raps, adding, "I ain't duckin' none."

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

More Song Stories entries »

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