Nicki Minaj apologizes for Nazi-inspired imagery in 'Only' music video
Nicki Minaj accepts the best female hip-hop artist award during the BET Awards at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on Sunday, June 29, 2014 in Los Angeles. Credit: Getty Images / Kevin Winter
Rapper Nicki Minaj apologized Tuesday for the Nazi-inspired imagery in the music video for her song "Only," but the clip's director declined to do so.
"The artist who made the lyric video for 'Only' was influenced by a cartoon on Cartoon Network called 'Metalocalypse' & 'Sin City,' " Minaj tweeted. "Both the producer, & person in charge of overseeing the lyric video (one of my best friends & videographer: A. Loucas), happen to be Jewish. I didn't come up w/the concept, but I'm very sorry & take full responsibility if it has offended anyone. I'd never condone Nazism in my art."
Director Jeff Osborne, however, told Spencer Stein afterward on that music journalist's MySpace page, "I'm not apologizing for my work, nor will I dodge the immediate question. The flags, armbands, and gas mask (and perhaps my use of symmetry?) are all representative of Nazism."
He went on to say the clip also used American military images and maintained he was attempting "to remind younger generations of atrocities that occurred in the past as a way to prevent them from happening in the future."
Monday night at Los Angeles International Airport, Minaj, accompanied by a young, bearded man, responded to a videographer who asked for her thoughts on accusations the video is anti-Semitic. "No, [and] this is my new Jewish boyfriend," she said in the video, posted at TMZ.com. "Why the [expletive] would I do that? We did this together," she added.
When asked for his name, the man simply smiled. Minaj then yelled, "Alex!"
Alex Loucas is a film and music producer at the Los Angeles production company Grizz Lee Arts, which lists Minaj among its client list.
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