If Nicki Minaj’s spectacular video for her last single, Anaconda, was a subversive slice of new wave feminism, the animated video for new release Only is harder to pin down.

It premiered online yesterday, and has attracted widespread criticism for its apparent use of Nazi imagery, from the Leni Riefenstahl-esque shots of troops marching in black, white and red uniforms sporting swastika-like symbols, to an animated Minaj perched on her throne.

Yet is the visual symbolism quite what it seems? Are the all-black stars from the Young Money record label (Minaj is the dictator, Drake the archbishop and Lil Wayne the CEO) just playing dress-up? Or is it a subversion of the Nazi movement?

Minaj’s video echoes Kanye West’s Black Skinhead video. Like Minaj, West has long been both a verbal and visual provocateur. The self-appointed “soldier of culture” and Warhol disciple, West dispensed with traditional hip-hop aesthetics early on.

Only continues a visual search beyond normal hip-hop tropes. And like Yeezus, Minaj seems far too narcissistically engrossed in her own journey to consider questions about the video’s supposed Nazi imagery.