The Amp has lamented that Kanye West left "Chain Heavy," one of his best new tracks, off "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." Now Nicki Minaj fans can lodge a similar complaint, because only the deluxe iTunes edition of "Pink Friday" comes with a worthy bonus: "Girls Fall Like Dominoes." As we suspected when we first heard the name of the track, Minaj's song samples "Dominoes" by the Big Pink, the U.K. band's killer 2009 single on which they brag about their powers over the fairer sex. (We liked it so much, we picked it as one of the 10 best songs of the year.)
Minaj picks up that lyrical thread in her version of "Dominoes" -- which was produced by J.R. Rotem -- rhyming about her special relationship with her female fans. Nicki raps about signing her fans' boobs and stealing Lil Wayne and Drake's girls while shouting out a motley mix of ladies including Kristin Cavallari, the Kardashians, Ciara, Mariah Carey, M.I.A., Mo'Nique, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Donatella Versace, Rihanna, Grace Jones, and Beyoncé.
While we'd be happy to simply celebrate the unlikely marriage of Minaj and an amazing rock track that didn't even make the U.S. Hot 100, "Girls Fall Like Dominoes" also marks the third time Minaj has tipped her hat to M.I.A. in song in addition to jumping on a remix of Maya Arulpragasam's "Teqkilla" in June. On Kanye West's "Monster" she notes that she's "with a bad bitch that came from Sri Lanka," and on her mixtape track "Beam Me Up Scotty" Minaj affects her now-familiar British accent for the line, "One, two, buckle my shoe/No one on the corner has swagger like I do." On Nicki's "Dominoes," M.I.A. is "superhero by night, rapper by day."
"I love M.I.A.," Minaj told us over the summer, when we chatted about Maya's most recent album, "/\/\/\Y/\." "Based on that first video she put out ['Born Free'], she's not doing stuff for the mainstream applause, and I applaud her for that. She's a creative being and you're either gonna love it or hate it but you have to respect it. And I love her. When she hit me to do a record with her, I thought I had died and gone to heaven."
Minaj said she remembered the first time she heard "Paper Planes," when she thought, " 'Who is this bitch!?' I thought those were like the sickest lyrics. And then when I'd watch her videos, she doesn't give a f---. That's what we want more of, we want people who don't give a f---."
[Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]