Nicki Minaj accused of toying with Nazi imagery in Only clip Nazi imagery in Nicky Minaj clip provokes outrage Few artists dare to use Nazi imagery, the reaction to Nicky Minaj's new film clip shows why. PT1M11S http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-3jzlr 620 349 November 10, 2014 - 12:11PM Serial offender, rapper and proponent of the fuller backside, Nicki Minaj, has provoked another storm of publicity-generating criticism by recycling what appears to be Nazi iconography. And not just in a Prince Harry "oops I didn't look too closely at my dress-up party costume" way. In the lyric video (a film clip with lyrics superimposed, which is generally released as a teaser for a proper clip) for her new song Only, Minaj and director Jeff Osbourne, use monochromatic drawings and black, white and red colour scheme for striking images. Within the clip are pictures of military equipment, grand monuments and buildings often draped in banners, marching troops and graphic design symbols - all of which are a mix of elaborate fascist-era grandiloquence and modern graphic novels. Not surprisingly, it didn't take long for comparisons to the Nazis to be made, from the vainglorious buildings of Albert Speer and S&M-favourites in black uniforms to armbands and flags with a design reminiscent of a swastika and the exultant images of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl from her films chronicling the rallies in Nuremberg and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. From tweeters claiming that "Using Nazi imagery to big yourself up is extremely messed up" and "hey @NICKIMINAJ thanks for the blatant nazi imagery in your new video! really great allusion to persecution &genocide" to others suggesting her collaborators on the song, Chris Brown (no stranger to offensiveness himself as an accused belter of women), Lil Wayne and Drake (who is supposedly half Jewish) are as guilty as she is and that the video should be banned, the weekend release of the song has probably done her brand recognition a great favour if nothing else. As a sign of the times maybe, not much public criticism of them has been made about either the language or sexual references in the song and clip which are hardly subtle either. Neither Minaj nor Osborne - nor for that matter Lil Wayne, Drake and Chris Brown - have made a comment about the controversy yet. Of course Minaj, whose most recent media outrage appearance was about the single entendres of her Anaconda song glorifying both large bums and their sexual appeal, is hardly the first to use and attract attention for suggestions Nazi identification. Manchester post-punk band Joy Division, originally called Warsaw (but changed to avoid confusion with another group called, with their own spin on Nazi-era titles, Warsaw Pakt), were named after the supposedly Nazi euphemism for concentration camp women used for sex. The band were occasionally described as toying with fascist imagery, though little evidence of that remains these days. The band they later became, New Order, officially took its name from a newspaper headline about the Cambodian genocide but the name already had a history as the supposed political and legal basis of Nazi hegemony over Europe. In a further twist, a video game called Wolfenstein: The New Order uses the same colour scheme, shadings and imagery of Minaj's clip for its alternate history set two decades after an imagined Nazi victory in WW II. A few years before Joy Division, Sydney's crucial Detroit rock/proto-punk band Radio Birdman used the red and black colours and similar striking iconography - which were considered by some, though denied by the band, as Nazi-related - and semi-fascistic salutes, while performing songs such as New Race ("there's gonna be a new race, kids are gonna start it up"). The punk era itself, particularly in the UK, was fond of a shocking splash of armband or poster reference to the Nazis, from the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees to the Sex Pistols. And the influence of Leni Riefenstahl's strong images from her Nazi propaganda films such as Triumph of the Will, has lasted more than 70 years up to and including Minaj's video. Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 clip made similar use of concentrated effect of massed marching soldiers (in the guise of hammers) thanks to artist/cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.