Nicki Minaj’s Video for “Chun-Li” Was Filmed Entirely in Selfie Mode
After dropping a pair of singles last week from a hinted soon-to-drop album, Nicki Minaj has released a music video for “Chun-Li.” It looks like an extremely expensive Instagram story, filmed almost entirely in selfie mode. Minaj herself holds the camera and raps her lyrics into it while lounging on a couch dressed in bondage-inspired leather, studs, and fishnets, and her hair up in chopsticks. Apparently she liked her outfit so much, she wore it to the Lakers game on Tuesday.
The title of the song, audio for which was released on Thursday, comes from the name of a character from Capcom’s Street Fighter series: Chun-Li, the first female fighter in the games, an accomplished martial artist and Interpol agent obsessed with tracking down and stopping the villainous M. Bison. Since her first appearance in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Chun-Li has become one of the most popular characters in the game and has appeared in ever subsequent installment. Minaj even evokes Chun-Li on the single’s cover art, which shows her sporting the character’s signature oxtail hair buns.
Chun-Li isn’t the only female hero Minaj compares herself to. In the song, she also references the mutant Storm from the X-Men and Lara Croft, another 90s-era female video game character, and she even tosses in a nod to Prince’s song “Darling Nikki.”
“They need rappers like me!” she growls, daring viewers to swipe left before this Insta vid is through.
