Nicki Minaj: Demonical Rap In Grammy

Debuting "The Exorcism of Roman," Minaj was positively possessed... by the British accent so recently driven out of Madonna. She was also overcome by the desire to put on an incoherent, theatrical extravaganza that looked like she put The Exorcist and Ken russell's The Devil in a blender and re-imagined the whole thing as a musical comedy.

The baffling number began with Minaj confessing to a terrified priest while appropriating a bit of "I Feel Pretty" that we feel sure couldn't have really been licensed Stephen Sondheim, and went into Catholic-imagery overload as Minaj rhymed "witch" "twitch" and "world 6." She did a neat magic trick, levitating demonically above the stage, though the trick of making us understand what any of it meant went unfulfilled. Maybe it'll make a slight lick of senses when her forthcoming song cycle comes out, but isn't it a little early in her career to be killing it with concept albums?