Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Nicki In More Magazine
Despite her fame, the most important thing in Nicki’s life is her family, who she wishes she saw more of.
“It’s weird. I’m around so many people but I’m not around the people I love. That’s why I put their names in my songs, because that’s who I do all this for. My family are not the type to be star-struck though,” she told more! magazine. “I love my family, I’d freaking jump under a bus for them.”
Nicki – real name Onika Maraj - was born in the Caribbean island of Trinidad but moved to the Queens borough of New York when she was five years old to live with her mother. The rapper believes fame doesn’t affect her due to the presence of her immediate family and in particular her young brother, who isn’t fazed by the new celebrity in their midst.
“My little brother is 12 and acts like he doesn’t know or care about me. All his friends are obsessing over me and he’s like, ‘Whatever Onika!’” she added.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Photos: Nicki On King Magazine (Updated)
Of course.
What would be your dream role?
I’d like to play someone in a Tim Burton movie, where I get dressed up and painted and crazy.
You kind of do that now.
Then I want to be able to do some action stuff, like Angelina Jolie.
Like in Salt?
Yes! And then I’d like to just play a regular girl who, you know, is facing the world. Something really sentimental and organic, that girls all around the world can identify with. You know, how Jada Pinkett Smith did in Jason’s Lyric.
Classic film. You did mention earlier how everything has been time consuming. But when that time frees up, what kind of guy do you look for to be sentimental and organic with?
Um, I look for someone who is calm, someone who is strong enough to not have to win every argument, someone who allows a woman to be her crazy self and someone with a conscience not to feel less of a man. You know, someone who is able to honor his woman but also bring out the freak in his woman.
How should your Ken bring out the freak in you, Barbie?
Just being super aggressive when the time is right.
Are we talking about Mortal Kombat–style “Come here” aggression?
Just something that makes me feel like they’re in control, when we are behind closed doors.
Read the rest of this article in the next issue of King, on stands early next month.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Nicki In Clash Magazine
But Onika Tanya Maraj (AKA Nicki Minaj) is far more than a gob-for-hire and whilst ‘Monster’ will act as 101 to many, the coming twelve months look certain to see the hip-hop hive fall to the beat of a new queen bee.
Moving from her native Trinidad and Tobago at the age of five to live in the New York borough of Queens, Minaj is marinated in the patchwork of her adopted hometown - callous and materialistic one moment, sentimental and welcoming the next. Cutting her teeth on a couple of stellar mixtapes (‘Beam Me Up Scotty’ and ‘Barbie World’), Minaj possessed a confidence and unwillingness to adhere to gender tropes that would have made her a prime target for the ubiquitous haters were it not for the innate talent fuelling her larynx.
Festooned in a cerise wig and matching lippy, Minaj flirts with the overt sexuality that plagues hip-hop; refusing to succumb to the notion of women as trophies to be paraded alongside grinted teeth and snazzy rims. Minaj takes her position as a role model seriously - avoiding the wanky faux-feminism of Lady Gaga in favour of an authentic portrait of 21st Century womanhood.
Vocally touching base with the likes of Santigold, MIA and Eve, Minaj’s cadence closest resembles that of Missy Elliot - but where the grandmother of hip-hop sticks primarily to rap Minaj is just as willing to get her lungs out. Showcased on the Annie Lennox-sampling ‘Your Love’, Nicki Minaj has a deep and soulful singing voice that lends her debut album ‘Pink Friday’ a contrast all too often missing from urban leaning releases. And it is this ability to exist in the overlapping Venn diagram of pop, hip-hop and credibility that will see Nicki Minaj owning 2011 with pink volition. Digested read; she is mother fucking monster!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Nicki Is Spin's Rookie Of The Year
Spin Magazine has deemed Nicki the best new artist this year... duh- of course she is! Check out the article here!
"I represent my entire generation," a female vocal careens from Studio A at Daddy's House, the dingy midtown Manhattan recording mecca owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs. When the studio door opens, there is Nicki Minaj, wearing a cotton-candy-colored fright wig. She is surprisingly short -- Kewpie-ish, even -- in jeans, a T-shirt, and brown riding boots, mouthing along to every word of her new song, "Fly." Two cameramen, a boom operator, a recording engineer, her publicist, and her hype man and closest confidant, simply known as S.B., surround her. She is smiling, but not happy.
"Do you mind if we tape this?" she asks, immediately after I ask the same exact thing. Our conversation is being filmed.
Of course it is. Because Nicki Minaj is the most beguiling female rapper since Missy Elliott and the most exciting new artist of the year. In 2010, if your song had a guest verse from Nicki -- and no fewer than 11 did, turning megastars like Kanye West, Mariah Carey, Lil Wayne, Drake, and Usher into afterthoughts on their own tracks -- it was probably a hit. And so MTV is making a documentary about her before she's even released her first album.
"She's like the Gaga or Beyoncé of rap," says Swizz Beatz, who produced three tracks on her debut, Pink Friday, including the antic Eminem collaboration "Roman's Revenge."
"Can you put that second 'whoo' back on the end of the chorus, please?" Minaj says to the engineer, who cues up the song. "Yeah, right there." On this October afternoon, she's putting the finishing touches on Pink Friday, but she's not letting anyone hear it yet -- especially not a journalist. For the past five days a crew has trailed her to chronicle the making of the album, and the constant presence of cameras is starting to get to her. But the former drama student dutifully plays her part.
Nicki Minaj was born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad 25 years ago. One of her earliest memories is hearing "Somewhere Out There," the heart-melting theme from the 1986 animated mouse fable An American Tail. "It made me feel sad," she says. "Like there was something in the world I wanted to see or be a part of."
She found it when she moved to Queens at age six. A self-proclaimed class clown and teacher's pet, Minaj studied acting at Manhattan's LaGuardia Arts, better known as the Fame school, but only because she was rejected by the singing program. When Lil Wayne saw her rap on the 2007 street DVD The Come Up, acting had to take a backseat. He adopted her into his Young Money collective, and eventually helped sign her to his label.
And you can hear Wayne's influence: Minaj is known for attacking with a cadre of voices (loud, soft, deep, girlish, accented, sensual, hysterical) and alter egos (tough chick Nicki, sexy Harajuku Barbie, phantasmagoric Roman Zolanski, and Roman's British mother, Martha). "Artists should definitely get therapy," she says with a sort of hard-knock Valley-girl inflection. "I don't think this is a normal thing. It's on the verge of being insane to be an artist. There is no other way to vent, unless you want to go to jail."
At times during our conversation, Minaj appears numb to her own narrative, fidgeting and applying makeup. (She's prettier without it.) She speaks quickly but rounds out thoughts with "So, yeah," and then stares blankly, her massive brown eyes unblinking, waiting for the next question.
But Minaj, for all her impatience, is savvy about fostering fandom. She calls her followers Barbies, or Barbz for short, building her own inclusive community. "People ask me if there's some scientific definition of it and, like, I'm supposed to have an epiphany of an answer," she says, exasperated. "It's not like I did a thesis and decided, Oh, Barbie, yay! It's an endearment I use."
"I need to know if this bar mitzvah thing is still happening!" Minaj is on the phone with her business manager, trying to confirm tonight's private gig. "I'm willing to do whatever I have to do," she says. "A fan is a fan."
Minaj's frankness is refreshing, but it's the fact that she is already receiving such requests that's so unusual. Though she has been rapping since she was 16, her 2008 mixtape Sucka Free was her coming-out moment. In the run-up to Pink Friday, she's built her reputation with a unique look -- a delightfully kooky, bewigged, robot-on-cocaine sort of thing -- and her ability to steal songs in just 16 bars with a keen mix of purring sexuality, agog aggression, and steely braggadocio. On West's "Monster," her best guest verse, she unleashes this brash mission statement: "Let me get this straight, wait / I'm the rookie?/ But my features and my show's ten times your pay? / 50K for a verse, no album out."
So, Pink Friday is a big deal.
"It's a challenge, because there hasn't been a major female rapper in a decade," says Bryan "Birdman" Williams, the CEO of her label, Cash Money. "But she is nothing but swagger. Her skills are incredible. I think she can be one of the biggest females to ever do it."
It's true, female rappers have historically sold far less than their male counterparts, but Minaj's arrival also marks an intriguing return to oddity. She balances her zaniness with pop-friendly constructions -- her best-known solo hits, "Your Love" and "Right Thru Me," are more about melodrama and singing than inventive rapping. But those songs lack the electrifying eccentricities of her verse on Trey Songz's "Bottoms Up," a Roman Zolanski appearance that finds her stammering, convulsing, and modulating her voice to sound like Marilyn Monroe. So the normalizing of Nicki Minaj seems a tricky proposition. Swizz Beatz thinks that's hardly the point. "Her music is rap in different lights," he says. "She's not scared to experiment."
She used to hate the studio, she says, until "the music changed and it got so good. I'm a fan of Nicki Minaj now."
At the end of the interview, with my recorder off, Minaj and I chat amiably. I press her about hearing the rest of Pink Friday. When it becomes clear that I'm asking as a fan and not a journalist, her disaffection cracks. She stands up, opens both arms, and motions for me to hug her. "Come here, I won't bite," she says, a broad smile creeping onto her face. "Thank you for coming to talk to me."
She's so small, I think, and when I touch her back, I feel her microphone pack. Our conversation is still being recorded.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
MySpace Artist Of The Year
Earlier this month I was set to catch up with Minaj at a People magazine shoot in a spacious studio in Los Angeles’ Culver City neighborhood. Things were running behind—as they often do when you are on the set of a photo shoot for a colossal national magazine—and soon Minaj was jumping into an idling Escalade for the quick drive over to a Westside soundstage, where she was due to film an episode of Chelsea Lately.
No problem, I thought—I’ll just sit down with her in her dressing room backstage. But moments after discussing such pressing matters as gender roles and the size of her booty with host Chelsea Handler, Minaj was back in the Escalade, high-tailing it to the airport in order to catch a red-eye back to New York. And just like that, my interview was over before it had started.
From there, however, the plan became to hook up a few days later, when she was back in Los Angeles to shoot a video for her Drake-assisted album cut “Moment 4 Life.” Even if you didn’t know about the ensuing case of laryngitis she was diagnosed with—coming just before the video shoot and shortly after celebrating her 26th birthday in Las Vegas—you can imagine how this turned out. I never was granted an audience with the personality-and-wig-swapping superstar.
But then again, did I really need to?
In 2010, Nicki Minaj was absolutely everywhere.
This year, she sang, rapped and talked her ass off—and, in a way, it was almost fitting that by the time she returned to Los Angeles, she had essentially lost her voice. Yet, even if she couldn’t physically accept the honor, there was no doubt that the Trinidad native was our Artist Of The Year: Throughout the past 12 months, no one seemed to embody the evolving state of the record industry—or found as interesting a way to succeed within it—more than she did.
Whereas many pop star-wannabes spent the past year honing their image and sound, Minaj appeared, in the lean months of 2010, seemingly fully formed. She also seemed to be in a tremendous hurry, lending what would we come to know as her trademark style—equal parts furious rhymes, playful voice swapping tricks and an arresting visual presence—to a bevy of other artists’ tracks. By April, she had already appeared on Mariah Carey’s “Up Out My Face,” Ludacris’ “My Chick Bad,” and Usher’s “Lil Freak,” just to name a few.
But it was her flame-throwing verse on Kanye West’s “Monster” (in which she delivered the now immortal line, “First things first, I’ll eat your brains”) that changed the public’s perception of her forever. Originally released in August as a free download through West’s G.O.O.D. Friday campaign, Minaj accomplished more in 90 seconds than most female rappers did all year, pulling off the herculean feat of besting rap legends like West and muther-effin’ Jay-Z (who, as luck would have it, asked Minaj to perform the song with he and West this past September, at a modest venue in the Bronx called Yankee Stadium).
“Monster” was a where-were-you-when-Kennedy-was-shot?-type moment for Minaj and its gravity was certainly not lost on those who were in the studio when she laid down her now-legendary rhymes. “I was [there] when she did her verse,” recalls Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who, to the shock of indie-rock bloggers everywhere, also contributed vocals to the track. “I remember thinking that it was one of the best verses I had ever heard, but thought it might be the fact that I was sitting in the actual studio and getting my mind blown doing that. Still to this day, though, the verse has complete control over everything. It’s perfect.”
Minaj, of course, didn’t invent the cameo strategy that made her inclusion on tracks like “Monster” so life altering. In 2010, Bruno Mars followed a similar route to stardom, appearing on ubiquitous pop hits like “Nothin’ On You” by B.o.B. and “Billionaire” by Travie McCoy before dropping his solo debut, Doo-Wops & Hooligans, in October. However, you would be hard pressed to find another artist who proved as vividly as Minaj did that this could be not only a sustainable new industry archetype, but also a hugely successful one.
“Nicki made herself (a star) by just being who she is,” says Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who was in the studio when Minaj laid down her epic verse for Kanye’s “Monster.”
In total, Minaj was featured on over a dozen different tracks throughout the first nine months of 2010, and nearly all of them became chart-topping smashes. There was a week in October where she had seven singles charting in the Billboard Top 200—at the same time. And while certainly these towering numbers were bound to impress new fans, what was most intriguing about Minaj’s rise is that—in an era when instant-celebrity status has replaced the need for an actual career—she felt like a legitimate star worth rallying around.
“She doesn’t seem to give a fuck,” says Vernon, who ended the year performing at the Bowery Ballroom in New York alongside Minaj, West and practically everyone else who appeared on Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. “Yet she gives a serious fuck about the right things. You can make people into stars—just about anybody, I’ve learned. Nicki made herself one by just being who she is.”
Like many who are close to Minaj, Cash Money Records co-founder Bryan “Birdman” Williams attributes much of Minaj’s attention-getting ability to the fact that she put in years worth of work before taking center stage. After Lil Wayne discovered her delivering a spitfire verse on a hip-hop DVD, and quickly had her to signed to his Young Money Entertainment label (an imprint under Cash Money Records), Williams says that Minaj “did two or three tours with us, just sitting on the sidelines watching” in order to learn the ropes.
“She didn’t know how much grinding we do,” Williams explains, calling from the office he keeps in New York to handle the business of what—thanks to the success of stars like Drake and Minaj—is turning out to be the biggest rap imprint in the Western World. “But,” Williams is quick to add, “she learned that by being around us. So when her turn came, she painted a picture that people liked. It used to be that rappers just rapped. Nowadays, Nicki got a style no other female out there have.”
That style, though, is still in the process of revealing itself, as her hugely anticipated debut album, Pink Friday, demonstrated with a handful of surprisingly tender, R&B-accented cuts. Songs like Minaj’s current hit “Right Thru Me” abandoned her animated flow in favor of a sound that felt more parts Keri Hilson than Kanye mixtape. Not every fan of Minaj’s furious guest spots warmed to this development: One noted critic took to Twitter to ask Minaj’s label to send him a copy of Pink Friday so that he could burn the album’s elastic, Eminem-aided freak out “Roman’s Revenge” and then smash the rest of the CD into pieces.
For others, though, pop-wise tracks like “Fly” and “Right Thru Me” simply illustrate how difficult Minaj is to categorize, a quality that has kept the majority of her fanbase firmly by her side. When it was released this past November, Pink Friday marked the highest first week sales ever for a female rapper and has gone on to sell over half-a-million copies—an amazing number for an artist whose career seemed to question the necessity for releasing an album at all.
However, what Pink Friday really seemed to accomplish for Minaj is that it set the stage for what should be an incredibly thrilling—not to mention long-lasting—musical future. “Nicki feels like a rapper that will not fall through the layers of history,” Vernon says, echoing the sentiments of many this year. “[She’s] someone that will be speaking to many—for decades.”
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Photo/Video: Nicki Minaj: Styled To A 'T'
The Girl
Nicki Minaj, the first female rapper to top the Billboard rap chart since Missy Elliott.
The Trend
Swim cocktail! Doing laps in the resort collections at Lanvin, Marc Jacobs and Chanel.
The Look
Yves Saint Laurent bandeau and skirt in water’s-edge-friendly toile.
Nicki Minaj is all things to all people — well, at least she is to herself. Since she burst on the scene as the mistress of the mix tape two years ago, the 26-year-old Trinidad-born rapper has assumed enough personalities to rival Sybil. Minaj has affected alter egos from Harajuku Barbie to Monica Lewinsky and her latest incarnation, Roman Zolanski. Now with a chart-topping debut album, Pink Friday, the Young Money princess is playing a new role: superstar.
This is quite the month for my favorite femcee. You have the new CD, a new MTV documentary and a new lipstick for MAC. If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up turning into Oprah and ruling the world.
Yes! I hope so. I love me some Oprah. It’s the beginning stage but I never imagined in a million years that this would be happening. It’s quite surreal.
Are you happy with your first CD?
Of course! It’s amazing. Honestly, sometimes I get tired of some of the songs because they have been with me for so long but overall I never imagined that it would be something that I would cherish so much and be so proud of. Obviously, I’ve done mix tapes before but having the album out feels like I am finally a real artist, like I have the stamp of approval as an artist from myself.
You’re ready to be the superhero and not just the sidekick?
Exactly. That’s why in “Roman’s Revenge,” the song I do with Eminem, I say “I am not Jasmine, I’m Aladdin.” It’s time for the girl to be the main character, you know?
Well, you’ve always been a superhero to me and part of your weaponry has always been your makeup. It’s fitting that you now have your own lipstick.
Isn’t it cool? Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m inspired by color and everyone knows I love pink. Actually, when I was first doing shoots people would always ask me to change my color of lipstick. Normally people wear different lipsticks, but pink is my thing and to change it would be like me changing my name when I walk out of the door.
A lot is made about your costumery, but tell me a bit about your personal style.
When I’m just at home or in the studio, I’d rather be chill. I like to dress down on my personal time but when it’s time to go out it’s on. I do like a pop of color.
And I know you have been vocal in saying that it’s not all sex all the time, but you always wear body-con stuff.
Yeah, but to me it’s less about wearing the tightest thing than wearing what makes me feel confident. Sometimes if something is too tight I’m not confident, I’m like, Don’t look!
I saw your documentary, “My Time Now,” and I have to say that parts of it, like when you cry talking about your grandmother’s passing, are heartbreaking. How hard is it to open up like that and talk about things like your dad doing crack?
It’s very hard and to be honest, he kind of caught me off guard when he asked me about my grandmother. I wasn’t prepared to answer that question. But that’s when you get the raw emotion and if being open about the things that have happened in my life inspires someone then it’s cool with me. I’ve done my part.
I thought it was also very important to show you in the studio, producing, writing on the fly, showing yourself as a creative person.
Well, it’s hard to be a female rapper but it’s more tough being credited with the work that you put in as a female rapper because people assume that you’re not the brains behind the operation or that you’re not the one writing these lyrics. So letting people come into my world and see that I am doing these things is good for all girls.
That brings up an interesting point because I would be pretty remiss not to mention your spat with Lil’ Kim. When she badmouths you and others doesn’t that just make it even harder for female rappers?
It does, it does. But the thing that I want to promote is that if you see someone doing their thing, give them their props. We all have it hard and face the same challenges as female emcees. Show some mutual love and respect for each other so that it doesn’t get nasty. And she can be a nasty character.
Speaking of characters, I wasn’t sure which of your alter egos would show up today. I was hoping for Roman.
[Nicki Minaj laughs and puts on a thick English accent.] Sometimes if it’s really early in the morning, Roman gets cranky and doesn’t want to get out of bed. Roman is lazy, you know, he wants to stay out all night and not wake up so I send Nicki out into the world. Roman has to be conjured up and now you’ve conjured him.
You’ve said that Roman is a sister. Please tell me he helps out with your hair and makeup.
Of course. Roman is leading the way when it comes to makeup and hair. He’s gay!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Nicki Talks To Elle Magazine
You have a few alter egos, so who am I talking to? Nicki the Ninja? Nicki the Boss?
You’re definitely talking to the Boss right now. I don’t think I even go by Ninja and Boss anymore, I just go by Nicki Minaj and Barbie.
Wait, but who is Roman Zolanski?
Roman is a weird little alter ego who is very flamboyant and doesn’t give a damn. You know when I’m doing really weird voices, growling, being real crazy, and talking like Anna Nicole Smith? That’s Roman.
Ah okay. I think I get it.
Roman rapped on “Bottoms Up” with Trey Songz. And then Barbie rapped on "Your Love". I think I just confused you ten times more.
What’s the craziest request for a verse you’ve ever gotten?
I’ve turned down like a billion of requests for sexually explicit lyrics. People just have to just start understanding that it’s not the only thing I have to talk about, it’s not the only thing I want to talk about, it’s not the only thing I’m going to talk about. I just have to take control of my brand because longevity is very important to me, and I wasn’t just going to please a couple of people then look back, and think “Wow, what did I just do to myself?” So I had turn a lot of people down, and there are a lot of people who were offended. I won’t name names, but they have to get over it.
Speaking of sex, I heard that your fans ask you sign their boobs?
Oh yeah, big boobs, little boobs, dry boobs, sweaty boobs, they don’t care. It doesn’t seem weird, though. It feels so empowering, and the girls are so happy about it. I really don’t even remember the first boob I signed, but now I can’t go anywhere without signing at least a hundred.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Preview: 'Nicki Minaj: My Time Now'
Rap-Up.com got a peek at Nicki's upcoming documentary with MTV and posted this today:
Nicki Minaj’s Barbz will have to wait until November 28 to watch her MTV documentary “Nicki Minaj: My Time Now,” however, Rap-Up.com scored a front row seat to view several segments of the hour-long production in advance.
Produced by Radical Media and executive produced by MTV’s Dave Sirulnick, the doc provides an intimate look at the person behind the pink lipstick and elaborate wigs. “‘My Time Now’ really allows viewers to see part of [Nicki's] world that she hasn’t given people access to,” Sirulnick reveals inside a conference room at MTV’s headquarters in New York City.
The feature presentation showcases the Queens rapper traveling to her native Trinidad, which she hasn’t visited since the death of her grandmother seven years ago. Hugging cousins upon her arrival, the 25-year-old star lets down her guard. “I don’t want to act like Nicki in front of you guys,” she says, before cameras catch her purchasing $12,000 worth of merchandise for the family she’s just reunited with.
“Everything in Trinidad reminds me of family that’s no longer here,” Nicki tells director Michael John Warren during an intimate sit-down. After Warren asks the solemn-faced artist if her deceased grandmother would be proud of all she’s accomplished, the unthinkable happens: Nicki Minaj cries. But not for long. As tears stream down her face, the rapper quickly reaches for a pink mirror to look into, and hide behind, to prevent her mascara from running.
The production moves forward as the Pink Friday creator admits her father fell victim to crack and stole from the family, including the video games her younger brother owned. On the other hand, she praises her mother, a woman who “kept us together even when she was embarrassed.” As a sign of appreciation, Nicki signs the dotted line on a stack of papers and hands over the keys to a new home to her mother.
Fans of the Young Money collective may question why the entire team is absent from the doc, but Warren felt the extra additions weren’t necessary. “Nicki was like, ‘Why aren’t you bringing anyone else into [the documentary]?’” he states. “I only bring people in when I feel like the artist hasn’t given me enough. She gave me so much material to work with.”
Before the 20-minute preview ends, the animated lyricist explains exactly where her alter-ego Roman Zolanski comes from (“Roman is a crazy boy who lives in me. He was born out of rage. People have conjured him up. Now he won’t leave”), erupts into a rant after another artist seemingly acts lackadaisical in returning a favor (“When men are assertive, they’re bossed up. When I’m assertive, I’m a bitch. You have to be a beast to get respect”), and discloses the real reason behind her crazy smile (“My happiness comes from seeing life without struggle”).
Nicki Minaj: My Time Now airs Sunday, November 28, at 10 p.m. on MTV.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Nicki In Billboard Magazine
But three years ago, Minaj, born Onika Maraj and raised in Jamaica, Queens, was just another tough, street-wise, potty-mouthed chick who couldn't keep a job.
"The last job I had was as an office manager in a little, tiny room where I literally wanted to strangle this guy because he was so loud and obnoxious," Minaj recalls. "I would go home with stress pains in my neck and my back. That's when I went to my mother and said, 'Look, I'm not going back to work.' I'd been fired like 15 times because I had a horrible attitude. I worked at Red Lobster before that and I chased a customer out of the restaurant once so I could stick my middle finger up at her and demand that she give me my pen back. I swear to God I was bad."
Thankfully, Minaj has found a much more productive way to channel her fury. After being discovered by rapper Lil Wayne a couple of years ago off the strength of a street DVD appearance and becoming the first lady of his Young Money crew, Minaj has become one of rap's most attention-grabbing MCs and this decade's Queen Bee.
Universal Motown president Sylvia Rhone marvels at Minaj's mic skills, noting that she has "proved that she can go toe-to-toe with today's top male rappers." The buzz began last year when she appeared on Robin Thicke's "Shakin' It 4 Daddy." Even Jay-Z took notice, making a suggestion for her verse. "I had never met Jay at that point," Minaj says, "but he told Robin Thicke that if I did the song I should say, 'I be, I be, I be, I be, I be on that money shit.' So I took that line and just ran with it."
Ludacris' platinum-certified "My Chick Bad" single and the Young Money hit "Bedrock" further boosted Minaj's credibility. Then there was Usher's "Lil Freak" and Trey Songz' "Bottoms Up," which showcased her range as she masterfully reconfigured her raps to fit the R&B-driven and club-heavy songs, respectively.
But it was last month, when Kanye West released "Monster," a new song featuring Minaj, Jay-Z, Rick Ross and Bon Iver, that skeptics-mostly male-finally recognized she was more than a hip-hop Jessica Rabbit. "Can we just talk about Nicki's verse????????!!!!!!!!! I toooooooooooooooold yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallll!!!!!!!!!!!" tweeted West, who, just weeks before, had dubbed Minaj the "scariest artist out right now" with the "potential to be the No. 2 rapper of all time" after Eminem.
"When I do songs like 'Monster,' when I'm on a record with Jay-Z and Kanye West, when I'm on a record with Wayne and Em -- I definitely think the dudes give me respect," Minaj says. "They haven't come easy but I think people are starting to give me more props."
To seal the deal, Minaj leaked the single "Roman's Revenge" a couple of weeks ago, which served as the official introduction of her most belligerent persona, Roman Zolanski. On it, although Minaj claims not to be directing rhymes at her, it seems the rapper takes aim at Lil Kim, who's targeted Minaj in recent rants for not paying sufficient homage to the female rappers who have come before her.
"'Nicki she just mad 'cause you took the spot,' word, that bitch mad cause I took the spot? Well, bitch, if you ain't shitting then get off the pot/Got some niggas out in Brooklyn that'll off your top," Minaj raps on the track.
"'Roman's Revenge' is where I've become a different human being," Minaj says. "I didn't give a damn who I offended, whose feelings I hurt -- this needed to be said, and it cracks me up when I listen to it. I'm a maniac on that track. I knew true hip-hop fans would love this."
Minaj credits mentor Lil Wayne for sparking that fire in her. After she dropped out of the second leg of Wayne's 2009 I Am Music tour, he kicked her out the crew -- a turn of events that wasn't made public. "I started to record by myself and I lost track of what I was doing and who I wanted to be," she says. "It wasn't until I linked back up with Wayne that he gave me this speech. He said, 'What happened? You were hot,' and it just hurt me so much. I wanted to prove to him that I was still hot. It hurt my ego so bad that I went back with a vengeance."
Surprisingly, Minaj's solo attempts haven't been quite as ferocious as her guest features have. Although first official single "Your Love" reached No. 4 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, the track wasn't even meant to be released. "I didn't like the song and I didn't put it out," she says. "Someone stole it out of the studio and put it on the Internet and I cried because I was mortified. I was humiliated and remember telling Drake, 'This is going to ruin my career.' "
That track followed the now unofficial lead single, "Massive Attack," which Minaj says she pretends doesn't exist to avoid feeling further embarrassment. The track charted but fell off soon after and was, according to Minaj, one of the low points of her career.
However, follow-up singles "Check It Out," which peaked at No. 14 on the Rap chart, and "Right Thru Me," topping out at No. 24 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, were well-received but not like "Your Love." But then in comes "Roman's Revenge," No. 56 on the Hot 100, and, as Minaj anticipated, a fan favorite.
"She has done well [on radio]," WQHT (Hot 97) New York VP of programming Ebro Darden says. "'Your Love' was huge, 'Right Thru Me' is growing, and it seems like 'Roman's Revenge' has people interested as well. She developed a following long before she had music on radio."
Lil Wayne, who was recently released from jail, says he's "not shocked at all" about Minaj's success. "Both Drake and Nicki Minaj are both born stars," he says. "I am just blessed to have them on the team."
Cash Money president Bryan "Birdman" Williams isn't surprised either, stating that Minaj has the right team -- including new managers Sean "Diddy" Combs and James Cruz -- to help her reach the top. "If she looks at us and our accomplishments, we've laid out the blueprint for her to accomplish a lot," he says. "She stands on her own with her talent, but a strong team is what makes or breaks an artist."
Now that Minaj has laid the groundwork, Universal Motown VP of marketing Katina Bynum says the label can begin rolling out a structured marketing plan for "Pink Friday." iTunes has a preorder promotion that instantly gives buyers a copy of "Roman's Revenge" upon purchase. MySpace will host a contest where selected winners will get a one-on-one experience with Minaj. "Maybe a shopping spree or meeting her backstage at a show," Bynum says.
"There will also be a release-week event -- either a performance or an album release party in New York or Los Angeles."
Minaj is set to do an AOL Sessions performance and a "24 Hours With Nicki" webisode series will air as well. Yahoo is shooting exclusive footage for a "New Now" episode and an in-studio video performance and interview. "As we go forward, we're talking about a partnership with Foursquare for a performance and maybe a Nicki look-alike contest to take place simultaneously in different cities," Bynum says.
Currently, there's a flyaway radio contest and a $1,000 shopping spree competition going on across the country. A tour is also in the works for next year. And while details are scant about her future ventures, Minaj is working with MAC makeup to start her own line, hopes to get into acting and wants to start a children's charity. She also plans to further develop her live show, working with choreographer Laurie Ann Gibson and a voice coach.
But for now, Minaj is fine-tuning the final details of "Pink Friday" and continuing to cement her status as the baddest bitch in the building-even if it means summoning the angry girl from a couple of years ago.
"I push people around me but I don't push anyone more than I push myself," she says. "I tell people all the time, 'You want to work for me? You have to give 250,000%,' because when I'm in the booth, I don't half-ass it. I demand perfection from everyone around me and if you can't live up to that, then bye-bye."
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Nicki Minaj Is No Lady Gaga
This article from AfterElton.com is anti-Nicki, but raises some valid points as to why the author is against her. Check it out and let me know what you think in the comments.
Last September, Out Magazine did a cover story on up-and-coming rapper Nicki Minaj who seems to be poised to follow in the steps of Lady Gaga as the next big female music sensation. With her oversized personality, outrageous costumes, and openly embracing her queer fans, Minaj has won the sort of gay following that tends to help many new stars make it to the next level.I'm not gay myself, so the word doesn't offend me, but I agree with every point the author made. It is a bit strange to have Eminem using the word "faggot" on a Nicki track. I know he's a big artist and she was thankful to be working with him, but she really should've stood up for her gay fans and put her foot down. "No homo" is bad enough, he didn't have to drop the F-bomb, too.
But should gay fans be quite so quick to embrace Minaj? Maybe not.
After first claiming she was bisexual, Minaj took all that back last June in an interview with Black Men magazine. As AfterEllen.com noted at the time about Minaj's recanting her bisexuality, "The last thing we need is another straight woman pretending to identify with our sexuality to lure us as customers or straight men into thinking they are their dream girl."
As if that wasn't enough of a reason to doubt Minaj's gay-positive credentials, last week saw her release a single with Eminem called "Roman's Revenge" from her upcoming album Pink Friday. The graphic song includes sexually explict and violent lyrics, and more of Eminem's well known homophobia.
At one point Eminem raps:
A-a-a-a-all you little faggots can suck it, no homo but I’ma stick it to ‘em like refrigerator magnets
Given that Minal told Out she wanted to bring her gay fans to her next level of success, teaming up with Eminem and performing lyrics like that seems an odd way of doing that or embracing her gay fans. In fact, it feels more like doing whatever it takes to get to that next level.
Even odder is that "Roman's Revenge" is apparently referencing Minaj's alter ego Roman Zolansky. While Out says Roman is a flamboyant gay man, it isn't clear that Minaj has given it that much thought. During the interview, she sort of comes to that conclusion about the persona, but none of the songs featuring "Roman" seem to back that up including "Bottoms Up" with Trey Songz which seems about as gay as your typical rap video full of hyspersexualized heterosexual images. She also refers to "Roman" as being spastic and crazy in an interview she does with Songz.
And why on earth would a gay character perform in a song with Eminnem with those gay-bashing lyrics? In fact the song mostly seems about Minaj staking out her claim as rap music's number one female artist, and any claim of Roman being some kind of gay-alter ego seems to have been made only talking to Out. And what better way to please your gay fans than by claiming you have a gay-alter ego?
To be fair, Minaj did record a (slightly odd) video supporting her gay fans who might be feeling suicidal, and she has gone on record as being grateful for her gay fans. But she also told OUT she hadn't told anyone she was doing the cover and definitely wasn't doing it because she way gay. Given her previous opportunistic faumosexuality and her work with Eminem, it's hard not to feel a little suspicions of Minaj.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Problem (Or Not) With Nicki Minaj
Check out Essence Magazine's response to the the Nicki-hating poet that went viral recently (see the dumb hoe here).
Over the weekend, a spoken-word performance of "The Miss-Education of a Barbie" went viral, and added to a growing anti-Nicki Minaj sentiment in the blogosphere. Jasmine Mans, the poetess behind the three-minute "dare" challenged Minaj to step her game up. "You turned your g-spot into a land mine," Mans' accuses to the only mainstream female MC. "There is nothing pedal bike pretty about being broken."
An onslaught of responses accusing Mans of "dissing" Minaj prompted the sophomore University of Wisconsin-Madison student, to clarify on her personal website/
"I do not want Nicki Minaj to be the next Lauryn Hill or MC Lyte, I want her to rap as if women like Assata Shakur and Toni Morrison exist... 'The Miss-Education of a Barbie' is a call to action not only for Nicki Minaj but to all women in the entertainment industry...If we, as an audience, do not hold up a mirror to our artists, then who will?
"On one hand, I'm co-signing every impassioned line Mans' spits, but on the other? Eh... I like Minaj. A lot. But I've avoided writing about her here (and on my personal blog, abelleinbrooklyn.com) for months because I couldn't make sense of my feelings. But I think I've figured it out.
"Because Minaj is the singular female voice in hip-hop, she carries the burden of being everything to everyone, including those of us who still haven't gotten over Hill chucking deuces. (As much as we all say we don't want the "next Lauryn" we do. Problem is, there's only one Hill, and in the decade Hill's been gone, she's been hyped up to a diety of Greco-Roman proportions beyond what any mortal or modern goddess can fill, including Hill.) Minaj's critics get doubly upset that she, as the only woman in her lane, chooses playful and provocative over actual depth. (And yes, Minaj is capable of greater depth as any video of her reveals to be a self-possessed, self-aware woman.)
"We've put the pressure on Minaj of being Badu-deep, but filling our voids is not an obligation for Minaj to shoulder. Her duty is to create her version of art, whatever that is and even if it's all pink everything. We can love Minaj or we can hate her, but it's fruitless to think we can change her into something she's not (or someone we still miss) in order to embrace her."
What do you think about Jasmine's poem and views?
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Nicki In YRB Magazine
Three years ago, Nicki Minaj sat hunched on a cramped staircase in her native Queens, her crispy black hair tucked behind a pair of chunky gold doorknockers. “Y’all bitches better sharpen ya mothafuckin’ No. 2 pencil – ‘cause I stay on point!” she shouts, waving a brick of Benjamins on reserve for a manicure. The tirade, capped by a pointy acapella freestyle, landed on 2007’s The Come Up DVD, introducing a hardened urbanite with raw, unmined talent.
Ever since her mentor Lil Wayne welcomed her to his testosterone-fueled Young Money gang on the strength of her DVD appearance, the 25-year-old has sped down the hip-hop highway to become the new decade’s first rap diva. Over the past year, Nicki became the first solo female emcee to top the Rap Songs chart since 2002 with the saccharine “Your Love,” effectively ending rap’s estrogen drought. In October, she shattered a Billboard record by becoming the first rapstress to simultaneously land seven songs (a combination of both solo and featured tracks) in the Hot 100 chart and sell a combined 4.29 million copies.
The numbers are on her side, but Judgment Day arrives on November 22, the day her hyped debut Pink Friday hits stores. Earlier this year, her Cash Money cohorts nudged her into the studio to begin cold recording the LP, attempting to capitalize on the buzz from animated verses on Ludacris’ platinum-certified “My Chick Bad” and Young Money’s “BedRock.” Initially, Nicki balked at the demand, worried that her talents were better suited for 16-bar guest contributions.
“I was so afraid to put out an album for fear of failure,” she later admits, stretched across a dressing room couch in a yellow Harajuku Lovers tee and flowing sweatpants. “I wanted to put my album out on Valentine's Day of 2011. And my label was like, are you fucking crazy?”
With a fan base that’s expanded from hip-hop to mainstream pop (even Regis Philbin branded her “the next Lady Gaga” following a performance on his show), Nicki isn’t ditching her aggressive hood past. Pink Friday carefully straddles the line between boisterous hip-hop and glistening pop, boasting an eclectic roster of guests including Rihanna, will.i.am, Drake, Kanye West and Natasha Bedingfield (who appears on “Last Chance”).
Pop has a heavy hand in the full-length, but Nicki panders to the hip-hop sect with the harsh “Roman’s Revenge.” The track, which sports a wobbly electronic beat and saucy lyrics, pairs her gay alter ego Roman Zolanski with Eminem, who also used the beginning stage of his career to rap from the perspective of a character.
“We both have our own world, and we're just colliding. I feel like we're on a freaking collision course or something. But it's very equal,” she explains. “I want a piece of that Slim Shady world because I feel like it may have subconsciously influenced me.”
Fans who have been lured into the Minaj matrix by her mystique will also see a more introspective side of the Harajuku Barbie on the album. Typically on wax, Nicki can flip from pointy and aggressive to British and ditzy over a span of two bars, leaving listeners in the dark about the girl behind the mic. One minute, she’s a squeaky British valley girl like on Mariah Carey’s “Up Out My Face (Remix),” and the next, she’s back to being Roman on Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up.”
But where she used the bulk of her 2010 recordings to take listeners to metaphor heaven, she strips away the gloss and allows herself to become vulnerable for the first time since her stark 2008 track “The Autobiography.” On “Dear Old Nicki,” for example, she addresses why she changed from the feisty around the way rap chick to female emcees’ saving grace.
“I'm going to talk about my family and a little bit of dysfunction – or I should say, lots of dysfunction. And I'm just going to talk about me and self-searching and why I made the choices [I did],” she says, differentiating between her aliases and Onika Tonya Maraj – her birth name. “Onika is not Nicki is not Roman. People will never be able to figure me out. I can tell you my whole life story from beginning to end, and then tomorrow, I'll be just a different person.”
Her identity is as shape-shifting as her rainbow collection of wigs, but her history is written in stone. Growing up in Queens, New York, a young Onika attended the LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (of which Fame was based), slinging her first rhyme to impress her next-door neighbor, Jennifer. “I started saying it to everybody,” she says with a giggle. “I thought that they were laughing with me, but they were really laughing at me.”
Reared on a healthy diet of Slick Rick and Doug E. Fresh, Nicki spent her adolescence studying hip-hop and developing a taste for couture from admiring her supportive mother’s fashion expertise (“She was wearing only the flyest shoes and dresses”). But where she spent countless hours locked in her room penning rhymes, hip-hop became a necessary escape from life’s harsh realities. On “The Autobiography,” Nicki details a traumatic episode where her substance-abusing father tried to burn the house down with her mother inside. It was one of the many situations that molded her into the hotheaded firecracker barking on The Come Up DVD.
It wasn’t until she met Wayne that she finally found a strong male figure capable of nurturing her love of rhyme. His oversight on her 2008 Sucka Free mixtape and her breakout 2009 tape not only cultivated her eccentricities, but also stamped her with a co-sign from a member of the hip-hop elite. Under the Young Money skein, the two joined forces with the rest of the squad to release We Are Young Money in December 2009, later earning gold certification for the album and a platinum plaque for “BedRock” in June.
But Nicki quickly learned a harsh lesson. Wayne could only take her so far as a solo artist, and his incarceration this past March left her and the YM camp to their own devices. His absence jolted her, not just on a personal level, but also taught her that making it to the top of the game doesn’t reward with automatic bulletproofing.
“At any given moment, you can experience your last day, whether it's going to come back, as in his case, or whether it's gone forever,” she slowly states, citing Remy Ma as another incarcerated emcee who often crosses her mind. “I can't stop, I don't know when this is going to end. I don't know if this is going to end. I don't know how long I'm going to have.”
The sobering reality put her into beast mode. Her buzz not only grew in the wake of Weezy’s imprisonment, but her willingness to experiment turned her saltiest haters into believers. According to Nicki, her pivotal 2010 moment wasn’t when “Your Love” hit the top of the charts – it was with a show-stopping guest appearance on Kanye West’s “Monster,” a giveaway track where she eclipses Jay-Z, ‘Ye and Rick Ross during a blackout verse.
“That has to be the breakout Nicki Minaj moment. That was my moment,” she says. Nicki laid down the verse after ‘Ye reached out to her through his former arm candy Amber Rose, hopping on a flight to Hawaii where she met up with West and laid down the track’s first vocals. “People paid attention because of who was on it and because I held my own and I stayed true to my crazy animation, and it's like I didn't have to take my fun stuff out. I was able to incorporate Nicki Minaj on a record with Jay-Z and Kanye West. And I think people know that's a difficult task in itself.”
Her success as an emcee has also jostled hip-hop’s gender lines, uncorking the forgotten female rappers of yesteryear. It’s no coincidence that Lauryn Hill returned from self-imposed exile or Rah Digga followed up her 1999 debut with her sophomore album this year. Some female emcees forgoing comebacks, like Foxy Brown, have co-signed Nicki and praised her consistent wins, but artists like Lil’ Kim have blasted Nicki for forgetting to pay homage to past femcees.
“These girls aren't mad at me. They're mad at themselves,” she states, shooting down questions on why she never took Kim’s bait. “[It’s] jealousy, insecurity and being broke. When you haven't capitalized and you see I'm about to capitalize on this shit like it's never been done before, then you're mad at yourself.”
Nicki gets the last laugh. Plotting an international tour for 2011, the baddest bitch in the building is climbing the charts with her singles “Right Thru Me” and the will.i.am-assisted “Check It Out.” Wayne will rejoin the Young Money fam upon his release from prison. All eyes are on the year’s highest achieving female rapper, whose debut album could position her as one of the year’s most successful musicians.
“I know that is a classic album. I have never been this proud of anything in my life,” she says. “I just think that it's such a dynamic body of work. I'm no longer afraid to drop it. Now, I know it's time.”
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Nicki Talks To Time Out New York
As Nicki Minaj notes in her cameo on Kanye West’s recent “Monster,” she currently commands “50K for a verse” with “no album out.” That last part is about to change: Capping a year spent chart-surfing with Drake, Lil Wayne and other high-rollers, the 25-year-old MC releases her debut LP, Pink Friday, on November 22. TONY recently caught up with Minaj in a midtown studio.
A lot of your raps have been based on this idea that you’ve “made a million off a mixtape,” just the idea that you’ve come so far without putting out a proper album. So what are you hoping to get out of actually releasing an album at this point?
[Laughs hysterically]. Well, maybe I shouldn’t put one out, if you look at it that way! I want respect from my peers; I want respect from the world as an official artist, an artist that knows how to make music and songs and an album. And when you haven’t put out an album, there’s still something looming over your head a little bit. And I know that I’m capable of really giving a body of music—I’m not a feature artist. You know, some people are just good on a feature. I’m just good enough and I want to show that.
You’ve been so powerful as a guest artist, stealing someone else’s show, and I’m interested to see what you’ll do when it’s your show. Are you thinking a lot about that?
Mm-hmmm, but I’m excited about! Not that I’m thinking about it like, [Sadly] Mmm, dag. I’m happy about it. I’ve been waiting my whole life to do this.
Mixtapes and singles, that’s sort of how music is consumed now. Is the physical product important to you? Or is it just the music?
No, it’s just the music for me. I would like them to buy it on iTunes. It doesn’t matter. If they get it on iTunes, they’ll get the iTunes deluxe edition—they’ll get three extra songs. It doesn’t matter to me if someone has the physical album; I just want them to have my music. I want to have a body of music, so that when I go to my shows, I’m not only doing features. I’m not only doing the hot 16 on that song—I’m doing the entire song, and people know that it’s from my album.
Do you still buy CDs, or do you consume music digitally?
I do both, but that was a good question: Do I care if they have the physical album? My particular fans, though, the younger fans, they really want a physical album. They want to have the poster; they want to have the booklet.
I think that comedy is really important to your music, and the humor is something that really appeals to me about it, like “Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai” [from “Your Love”]…
[Laughs] Random things.
Do you think of yourself as a comedian as well as a musician?
Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm!
Are there comedians you admire, along with other rappers?
[Laughs] You have really great questions! Like, by far… No, I’m serious! Yes, I do consider myself to be a comedian. I love Martin [Lawrence] and I love Chris Rock and I love Larry David and I love Judge Judy! She’s a comedian to me in her own right. It’s like, you should be crackin’ up laughing. Some things in the songs should make you crack up. I like that.
In addition to the comedy, your raps also have this really competitive attitude, like “I just annihilated every rap bitch in the building.” Is there an element of comedy in that, too, or is it meant to be an actual put-down?
It’s not meant to be mean; it’s meant to be funny.
So it’s kind of like on the schoolyard—
[Sings tauntingly] Nyah-nah nah nyah-nah. That’s what rap is. That’s what hip-hop is to me. It’s like, “I’m this—I’m better than you, and anybody doin’ what I do, I do it better.” So what people don’t understand is, I don’t hate these girls. Like sometimes you would wish something bad on a person, if that was your real enemy. These people aren’t my real enemy—they’re a competitor in a sport. It’s no different from friggin’ goin’ on a basketball court. You gonna show off—you gonna do your craziest tricks and say, “What?” And [I’ll] push you to the floor if I need to, to show you I’m better than you at playin’ ball, but I don’t go to bed at night hating these people or wanting something bad to happen, you know? It’s so different, and yeah, there is a lot of comedy in it, and there is a lot of just, like, schoolyard [Twists neck to illustrate], twisting your neck—it’s just like that… But I am better.
Do you think that’s been a problem in hip-hop in the past, that things that are just meant as a dis get turned into an actual real-life feud?
That happens with anything. I mean, not just in rap. Things turn violent every day. That has nothing to do with rap. It’s just personalties. It doesn’t bother me, and I’m not gonna change because of it.
Why does there still have to be that distinction of a “female rapper”? Why are there not as many women doing this?
[Softly] I don’t know. I wish I knew.… I really don’t know. I think girls need to write their own raps, though. I think girls need to go in the studio, take a beat, start writing, stop depending on people to do shit for you. Because then, when it’s no longer your moment, you’re lost! You need that ghostwriter that you used to have from ’98. [Laughs] It’s like, “Mmm-mmm.” I think girls after me, and some girls before me—let’s be honest: There’s a lot of girls that’ve done a great job. But I just think women in hip-hop have really predominantly been the sidekick. You have to take yourself out from being the sidekick to the superhero. You can’t be Robin forever, you know what I mean? And that’s what I’m doing; that’s what Pink Friday is. It’s like, “Bitch, I’m Batman, ho.” [Laughs].
So you’re competing with all rappers, not just female ones.
Exactly.
The past year has been so huge for you—your profile has risen so immensely. Do you remember when the moment was that you said to yourself, “I’m becoming a star”?
There have been so many different moments. The VMAs was one; Yankee Stadium with Jay-Z and Kanye West, that was another big one for me; just being asked to be on Kanye’s album was huge for me. I won three BET awards, three hip-hop awards with no album out. There’s been a lot of things, but I guess I don’t sit down and take it all in, pause. It just happens and then I look back and say, “Thank God for this blessing” and blah blah blah. But I’m sure there’s a lot of things happening every day that I don’t even believe.
Another thing I really like about your raps is the self-nicknaming, how you kind of roll off all these names like Lewinsky or the Ninja. What is that all about?
It’s always been in rap. I mean, it’s like Jay-Z: Jigga Man, Hov, S. Carter. I see the big boys do it, and I guess I do it. Dag, the only one who don’t got a frickin’ nickname is Kanye West! [Laughs]
What drew you to the Lewinsky? That was so out of left field.
I don’t use Lewinsky anymore. [Mock-exasperated] I don’t want to talk about it!
You said something about “the mistress” in one of the raps—
[Still mock-exasperated] Ooookay, I get it! No, it was just, like, a joke at that time, because [Lil] Wayne was the President, and I called myself [Laughs] Nicki Lewinsky. It was a funny joke, but I don’t like it anymore.
Any new names coming that we can get a sneak preview of?
Hmmm… Have you heard of Roman?
Roman?
He’s a gay boy—he lives in me.
I look forward to that.
He’s out—he’s out of the closet already.
I was wondering how you felt about the rap in which Drake is basically proposing to you. What did you think when you heard that?
I thought it was cute. He’s a cute little lamb chop. He let me hear it before it came out, though, and I was like, “Whoa, are you really gonna say that?” I didn’t think he was gonna leave it in the song, but I love it.
I’m wondering about the distinction about rapping and singing. You’re known more as a rapper than a singer, but would you ever want to even that out?
Mmm-mmm. I would never even that out, but I would always do a little singing.
I think that duality is interesting, because there’s a part on the mixtape where you’re talking about how the first part was raunchy and you kind of wanted to move into a more “delicate” mode. Do you think a lot about both sides of that coin?
Mmm-hmmm. It’s important to me to stay true to both sides, because I have fans on both sides, so I can’t stray away too far from the crazy, real edgy stuff…[Quietly] ’cause my fans won’t like me.
Do you think you can still be believable singing a sweet love song after you’ve done all that—
Absolutely. I’ve done it on Pink Friday. I’ll play you the song before you leave. I’m believable at whatever I do, because I’m dead-ass doin’ it. Like, I’m not in the studio with somebody doin’ it for me. My fans have gotten to understand that I am many different people, and one day they get one thing, next day they get another thing, but it’s still true to me, and they don’t question it. Like with “Check It Out,” the song I have with Will.i.am, it’s, like, so pop, but, you know, it’s gettin’ played. You would think people would be like, “What?!? She’s selling out!” But it’s charting; it’s on Billboard, and it’s selling on iTunes, so it’s like… The moral of the story is, if I box myself in, it’s suicide. That’s the problem with rap: If you’re not careful, you suicide yourself. You gotta do whatever it is that you love, and not be afraid. ’Cause if you’re afraid, then they can smell fear, you know? I think with me, in the beginning I was afraid to do certain things, so it seemed unnatural and uncomfortable, but now, it is what it is.
Yeah, because “Your Love” was the first song that grabbed me…
You like that song?
I think it’s great, yeah. You’re sick of it?
It’s stupid.
Why do you think it’s stupid?
[Laughs] I don’t know. I recorded that song a long time ago, so it doesn’t feel like me, who I am now. Like, “Right Through Me” is more me, right now, talkin’ about a love story, but that one was more, like, fictional. But it was a pretty beat, and I love the sample, and I love the hook.
Well, you shouldn’t get too down on it—it’s a great song.
[Laughs] I know, right? “Damn.” [Snaps fingers in mock disappointment] You know I broke the record?
For?
For the first female rap artist in seven years to top the Billboard rap charts, and I was No. 1 for eight weeks.
So you can’t disconnect yourself too much from it.
[Mock-sighing] I guess… Fine.
Do you ever think about how you would plan a full headlining show? How would you fill an evening of entertainment?
[Assumes uppity British accent] Oh, well I’d have tons of girls all around the stage, and I’d have lots of color, and—I dunno—I’d probably have, like, you know, spaceships bursting out. And I’d give away lots of gifts, and I’d mingle with the crowd, and…dance routines, darling, and big, poufy dresses too, and ninja outfits too, and then, just, going crazy… Lots of wigs, too. And then a moment where I’m just [Tenderly] sexy and, like, serene and I’m with one boy and I’m doing a dance, like a pantomime or something. [In normal voice] And then that’s it!
[Mock-unimpressed] Only that?
[Laughs] Are you beginning to think I’m crazy?!?
So how many of those wigs do you have [Points to pink wig]?
[Mock-glamorously] Oh, lots, darling.
So is there someone that you have on staff who deals with only that?
Lugs my wigs around…dot-com. [Laughs]
A lot of your raps have been based on this idea that you’ve “made a million off a mixtape,” just the idea that you’ve come so far without putting out a proper album. So what are you hoping to get out of actually releasing an album at this point?
[Laughs hysterically]. Well, maybe I shouldn’t put one out, if you look at it that way! I want respect from my peers; I want respect from the world as an official artist, an artist that knows how to make music and songs and an album. And when you haven’t put out an album, there’s still something looming over your head a little bit. And I know that I’m capable of really giving a body of music—I’m not a feature artist. You know, some people are just good on a feature. I’m just good enough and I want to show that.
You’ve been so powerful as a guest artist, stealing someone else’s show, and I’m interested to see what you’ll do when it’s your show. Are you thinking a lot about that?
Mm-hmmm, but I’m excited about! Not that I’m thinking about it like, [Sadly] Mmm, dag. I’m happy about it. I’ve been waiting my whole life to do this.
Mixtapes and singles, that’s sort of how music is consumed now. Is the physical product important to you? Or is it just the music?
No, it’s just the music for me. I would like them to buy it on iTunes. It doesn’t matter. If they get it on iTunes, they’ll get the iTunes deluxe edition—they’ll get three extra songs. It doesn’t matter to me if someone has the physical album; I just want them to have my music. I want to have a body of music, so that when I go to my shows, I’m not only doing features. I’m not only doing the hot 16 on that song—I’m doing the entire song, and people know that it’s from my album.
Do you still buy CDs, or do you consume music digitally?
I do both, but that was a good question: Do I care if they have the physical album? My particular fans, though, the younger fans, they really want a physical album. They want to have the poster; they want to have the booklet.
I think that comedy is really important to your music, and the humor is something that really appeals to me about it, like “Somehow I understood him when he spoke Thai” [from “Your Love”]…
[Laughs] Random things.
Do you think of yourself as a comedian as well as a musician?
Mmm-hmm, mmm-hmm!
Are there comedians you admire, along with other rappers?
[Laughs] You have really great questions! Like, by far… No, I’m serious! Yes, I do consider myself to be a comedian. I love Martin [Lawrence] and I love Chris Rock and I love Larry David and I love Judge Judy! She’s a comedian to me in her own right. It’s like, you should be crackin’ up laughing. Some things in the songs should make you crack up. I like that.
In addition to the comedy, your raps also have this really competitive attitude, like “I just annihilated every rap bitch in the building.” Is there an element of comedy in that, too, or is it meant to be an actual put-down?
It’s not meant to be mean; it’s meant to be funny.
So it’s kind of like on the schoolyard—
[Sings tauntingly] Nyah-nah nah nyah-nah. That’s what rap is. That’s what hip-hop is to me. It’s like, “I’m this—I’m better than you, and anybody doin’ what I do, I do it better.” So what people don’t understand is, I don’t hate these girls. Like sometimes you would wish something bad on a person, if that was your real enemy. These people aren’t my real enemy—they’re a competitor in a sport. It’s no different from friggin’ goin’ on a basketball court. You gonna show off—you gonna do your craziest tricks and say, “What?” And [I’ll] push you to the floor if I need to, to show you I’m better than you at playin’ ball, but I don’t go to bed at night hating these people or wanting something bad to happen, you know? It’s so different, and yeah, there is a lot of comedy in it, and there is a lot of just, like, schoolyard [Twists neck to illustrate], twisting your neck—it’s just like that… But I am better.
Do you think that’s been a problem in hip-hop in the past, that things that are just meant as a dis get turned into an actual real-life feud?
That happens with anything. I mean, not just in rap. Things turn violent every day. That has nothing to do with rap. It’s just personalties. It doesn’t bother me, and I’m not gonna change because of it.
Why does there still have to be that distinction of a “female rapper”? Why are there not as many women doing this?
[Softly] I don’t know. I wish I knew.… I really don’t know. I think girls need to write their own raps, though. I think girls need to go in the studio, take a beat, start writing, stop depending on people to do shit for you. Because then, when it’s no longer your moment, you’re lost! You need that ghostwriter that you used to have from ’98. [Laughs] It’s like, “Mmm-mmm.” I think girls after me, and some girls before me—let’s be honest: There’s a lot of girls that’ve done a great job. But I just think women in hip-hop have really predominantly been the sidekick. You have to take yourself out from being the sidekick to the superhero. You can’t be Robin forever, you know what I mean? And that’s what I’m doing; that’s what Pink Friday is. It’s like, “Bitch, I’m Batman, ho.” [Laughs].
So you’re competing with all rappers, not just female ones.
Exactly.
The past year has been so huge for you—your profile has risen so immensely. Do you remember when the moment was that you said to yourself, “I’m becoming a star”?
There have been so many different moments. The VMAs was one; Yankee Stadium with Jay-Z and Kanye West, that was another big one for me; just being asked to be on Kanye’s album was huge for me. I won three BET awards, three hip-hop awards with no album out. There’s been a lot of things, but I guess I don’t sit down and take it all in, pause. It just happens and then I look back and say, “Thank God for this blessing” and blah blah blah. But I’m sure there’s a lot of things happening every day that I don’t even believe.
Another thing I really like about your raps is the self-nicknaming, how you kind of roll off all these names like Lewinsky or the Ninja. What is that all about?
It’s always been in rap. I mean, it’s like Jay-Z: Jigga Man, Hov, S. Carter. I see the big boys do it, and I guess I do it. Dag, the only one who don’t got a frickin’ nickname is Kanye West! [Laughs]
What drew you to the Lewinsky? That was so out of left field.
I don’t use Lewinsky anymore. [Mock-exasperated] I don’t want to talk about it!
You said something about “the mistress” in one of the raps—
[Still mock-exasperated] Ooookay, I get it! No, it was just, like, a joke at that time, because [Lil] Wayne was the President, and I called myself [Laughs] Nicki Lewinsky. It was a funny joke, but I don’t like it anymore.
Any new names coming that we can get a sneak preview of?
Hmmm… Have you heard of Roman?
Roman?
He’s a gay boy—he lives in me.
I look forward to that.
He’s out—he’s out of the closet already.
I was wondering how you felt about the rap in which Drake is basically proposing to you. What did you think when you heard that?
I thought it was cute. He’s a cute little lamb chop. He let me hear it before it came out, though, and I was like, “Whoa, are you really gonna say that?” I didn’t think he was gonna leave it in the song, but I love it.
I’m wondering about the distinction about rapping and singing. You’re known more as a rapper than a singer, but would you ever want to even that out?
Mmm-mmm. I would never even that out, but I would always do a little singing.
I think that duality is interesting, because there’s a part on the mixtape where you’re talking about how the first part was raunchy and you kind of wanted to move into a more “delicate” mode. Do you think a lot about both sides of that coin?
Mmm-hmmm. It’s important to me to stay true to both sides, because I have fans on both sides, so I can’t stray away too far from the crazy, real edgy stuff…[Quietly] ’cause my fans won’t like me.
Do you think you can still be believable singing a sweet love song after you’ve done all that—
Absolutely. I’ve done it on Pink Friday. I’ll play you the song before you leave. I’m believable at whatever I do, because I’m dead-ass doin’ it. Like, I’m not in the studio with somebody doin’ it for me. My fans have gotten to understand that I am many different people, and one day they get one thing, next day they get another thing, but it’s still true to me, and they don’t question it. Like with “Check It Out,” the song I have with Will.i.am, it’s, like, so pop, but, you know, it’s gettin’ played. You would think people would be like, “What?!? She’s selling out!” But it’s charting; it’s on Billboard, and it’s selling on iTunes, so it’s like… The moral of the story is, if I box myself in, it’s suicide. That’s the problem with rap: If you’re not careful, you suicide yourself. You gotta do whatever it is that you love, and not be afraid. ’Cause if you’re afraid, then they can smell fear, you know? I think with me, in the beginning I was afraid to do certain things, so it seemed unnatural and uncomfortable, but now, it is what it is.
Yeah, because “Your Love” was the first song that grabbed me…
You like that song?
I think it’s great, yeah. You’re sick of it?
It’s stupid.
Why do you think it’s stupid?
[Laughs] I don’t know. I recorded that song a long time ago, so it doesn’t feel like me, who I am now. Like, “Right Through Me” is more me, right now, talkin’ about a love story, but that one was more, like, fictional. But it was a pretty beat, and I love the sample, and I love the hook.
Well, you shouldn’t get too down on it—it’s a great song.
[Laughs] I know, right? “Damn.” [Snaps fingers in mock disappointment] You know I broke the record?
For?
For the first female rap artist in seven years to top the Billboard rap charts, and I was No. 1 for eight weeks.
So you can’t disconnect yourself too much from it.
[Mock-sighing] I guess… Fine.
Do you ever think about how you would plan a full headlining show? How would you fill an evening of entertainment?
[Assumes uppity British accent] Oh, well I’d have tons of girls all around the stage, and I’d have lots of color, and—I dunno—I’d probably have, like, you know, spaceships bursting out. And I’d give away lots of gifts, and I’d mingle with the crowd, and…dance routines, darling, and big, poufy dresses too, and ninja outfits too, and then, just, going crazy… Lots of wigs, too. And then a moment where I’m just [Tenderly] sexy and, like, serene and I’m with one boy and I’m doing a dance, like a pantomime or something. [In normal voice] And then that’s it!
[Mock-unimpressed] Only that?
[Laughs] Are you beginning to think I’m crazy?!?
So how many of those wigs do you have [Points to pink wig]?
[Mock-glamorously] Oh, lots, darling.
So is there someone that you have on staff who deals with only that?
Lugs my wigs around…dot-com. [Laughs]
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
"Right Thru Me" Producer Talks Nicki
“She was working in L.A. and I work in Miami, with our busy schedules it’s kinda hard to be in the studio together,” admitted Drew Money [the producer behind her hit single, “Right Thru Me”.] as he explained that the track came together via email. “Basically, I just wanted to make something for her that was pop but still rap and a fusion of everything. That’s kinda how my sound is, it’s a fusion of rock and pop, with the guitars, and with the synthesizers and the 808s, that’s a good sound for her.”
Drew, who also worked on “Hello Brooklyn” for Jay-Z, says that he wasn’t a huge Barbie fan before “Right Thru Me” but game recognizes game.
“I’m just a fan of music in general and Nicki is really hot right and I want to work with the best artist out there right now and she’s definitely one of them,” says Drew.
And though he wasn’t aiming for Nicki when he crafted the beat, he knew he had a winner.
“I knew it was something special just listening to the beat, before she put her vocals on it,” says Drew Money. “It just needed the right artist and the right time.”
Like Kanye producing for Jay and expecting a pop track, but getting heart felt prose, Drew Money says he didn’t expect the emotion of “Right Thru Me” but says “it was a good direction for her to go because she didn’t really have a song like that yet and this is like her toned down style, I thought it was very cool.”
Now, the beat miner says he’s working on more tracks for Nicki Minaj as she finalizes her debut.
“I’m not really sure right now how many tracks [of mine will make Pink Friday], I’m just giving her stuff that’s fun and exciting,” he said. “Stuff that I think all her fans will really love, stuff that when it comes on right away, you’re just like ‘Yes, I love this’ like feel-good music.”
He’s also submitting tracks for the rest of Cash Money-Young Money.
“I’m just working with the whole Cash Money-Young Money family,” says Drew Money. “I actually did a song for Wayne last year called “Fix My Hat, and I do have a couple of things in particular that’d be good for him.”
The video for "Right Thru Me" premieres today on 106 & Park!
Monday, October 25, 2010
Women Nicki Should Work With
MTV.com posted this article about the best potential collabos they could come up with. Share your ideas in the comments section!
Nicki Minaj's buzz can't get much bigger than it is right now.
Like Drake in the months leading up to the release of his debut, Thank Me Later, Miss Minaj is everywhere and she's not the only one benefiting from it. To capitalize on her buzz, there have been a number of artists, including Usher, Ludacris, Trey Songz, Jay Sean, Sean Garrett and Sean Kingston, who have turned to her to give their singles an extra boost.
But there's another trend going on as well: Female artists asking Nicki for a little girl power on their power ballads. Mariah Carey did it first on "Up Out My Face," then Christina Aguilera reached out for "Woohoo" and, most recently, Keyshia Cole made her long-awaited return to the R&B game by asking Nicki to jump on her new single, "I Ain't Thru."
But why stop there? Nicki Minaj could help a whole bunch of other female artists—and, in the process, help her own career—by working with them in the near future.
To help give her some ideas, RapFix hatched a list of women Nicki should consider recording with soon and put the grrrrrr back in girl power.
Nicki Minaj x Willow Smith
We almost got this when an unauthorized leak of a "Whip My Hair" remix surfaced (Nicki's contribution turned out to be an old verse). But, let's put it this way: If she can hop on a track with a 9 year-old and give us a PG verse that still sounds good, it'd be an impressive feat—and a reason for Disney to give her a shot at recording a song for a soundtrack sometime soon.
Nicki Minaj x Alicia Keys
Why hasn't this happened yet? Well, probably because Ms. Keys (or is it, Mrs. Beatz?) is out on maternity leave right now with little Egypt Dean. But when she gets back, don't be surprised to hear these two rep the Big Apple on a track together. Nicki is from the City That Never Sleeps after all. And Alicia? Well, you already know she's repping NYC, right?
Nicki Minaj x Katy Perry
Something tells us it's only a matter of time before non-rap acts start knocking on Nicki's door. And something also tells us that Katy P is one of the few females in the music game that could keep up with Nicki's funny faces. This pairing is almost too easy. "I Kissed a Girl 2," ladies?
Nicki Minaj x Rihanna
What's that? They've already got something they're cooking up for us? It's about time. Good girls gone bad, indeed!
Nicki Minaj x Lady Gaga
We pity the poor stylist who would have to keep these two dressed on the set of their music video. But, we're pretty sure the final product would be well worth it.
Nicki Minaj x Ke$ha
Nicki doesn't seem like a Jack Daniel's kind of girl and Ke$ha doesn't look like the kind of girl that played with Barbie dolls growing up. But opposities might attract if these two brought their bigger-than-life personalities to the studio on the same day.
Nicki Minaj x Eve
Eve is trying to make a comeback early next year—and we support. That might have been fairly easy a couple years ago (well, not that easy, considering that she was supposed to come back and never did) but it's gonna be pretty difficult to do now that Nicki's occupying the "one female MC per generation" seat on hip-hop's tour bus. But hearing two successful female rappers on the same track would be kind of nice, wouldn't it?
Nicki Minaj x Madonna
Okay, enough with the softball suggestions. We want to see Nicki win and win BIG. It gets no bigger than recording a track with the original Material Girl. And since she's reportedly been clamoring to work with a rapper as of late (Rolling Stone reported that she tried collabing with Eminem last year) we're guessing this might not be out of the realm of possibility. Can't you just hear all Nicki's Madonna references already?
Nicki Minaj x Sade
Sade has reportedly turned down the opportunity to work with Jay-Z and told Drake to get lost. But, what if a young, strong, independent female MC stepped to her and said that she's been dying to work with her? Hm ... Now we're talking.
Nicki Minaj x Lil Kim
You want to talk about making history? Listen, we know Nicki and Kim have had their problems in the past. But, hell, so did Jay and Nas and they managed to get past it. Great things come out of terrible situations. And something tells us a Nicki Minaj/Lil Kim collaboration would be a win for both parties. What do you say, girls?
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Nicki Becoming One Of This Generation's Most Fascinating Musical Figures
Here's what the New York Daily News published yesterday about Miss Minaj.
Nicki Minaj has created an incredible amount of buzz as an emcee — and she hasn't even released an album.
Already a winner of seven music accolades (three from the BET Hip Hop Awards last week), the 25-year-old, Queens-bred artist has collaborated with Mariah Carey, Will.i.am and Rihanna. With an alter ego that she calls Barbie and outlandish outfits, Minaj is quickly becoming one of this generation's most fascinating musical figures.
- On gay rappers: "I think the world is getting more gay-friendly, so hip hop is, too. But it's harder to imagine an openly gay male rapper being embraced. People view gay men as having no street credibility. But I think we'll see one in my lifetime." (Details)
- On her public persona: "Every woman is a character — but people need to see I'm a regular human. It's like you wear a pink wig and you're no longer human all of a sudden. You're a thing." (Complex)
- On rapping about sex: "When I grew up, I saw females doing certain things, and I thought I had to do that exactly. The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn't have to represent the same thing." (Vibe)
Friday, October 15, 2010
Is Nicki The Already The Most Successful Female Rapper?
Check out what Much Music published lately about our HB,
Although she’s still relatively new to the game, Nicki Minaj is set to become the most successful female rapper of all-time.
Minaj is already the record holder for most entries on the Billboard Hot 100, chalking up seven in 2010 alone, not to mention download sales of $4,298,000 so far this year.
This, of course, has a lot to do with guest appearances on high profile tracks like Ludacris’ “My Chick Bad”, Usher’s “Lil Freak” and Lil’ Wayne’s “Knockout.” But the rapper’s own material is definitely making an impact, especially [her] single, “Your Love,” which is the first song by a female rapper to hit number one on the Hot 100 since Missy Elliott’s “Work It” in 2002.
What’s most impressive though is how quickly Minaj has tasted this success. Her debut album, Pink Friday is still more than a month away from its release (November 23rd). Who knows what records she’ll rack up with that one?
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Nicki Sets New Billboard Record
Nicki Minaj made an undeniable splash on the Billboard charts this year, becoming the first female to top the Rap Songs list with her hit 'Your Love' since Missy Elliott held the same position in November 2002. But that was only the tip of the iceberg for the Young Money raptress breaking records on the Billboard charts.
According to the numbers, Nicki has become the first female rapper to have the most entries lodged on the Billboard Hot 100, with seven entries listed on Nielsen Soundscan's 200 best-selling songs of 2010. The Harajuku Barbie has sold a total of 4,298,000 in sales, including her own solo records as well as joints on which she's been featured.
The highest-selling track of the bunch is Ludacris' "My Chick Bad", which sold 1,246,000 copies. Her breakout single "Your Love" came in a distant second with 755,000 units sold, followed by Lil Wayne's "Knockout" (519,000), Trey Songz's "Bottoms Up" (518,000), Usher's "Lil Freak" (508,000), Sean Kingston's "Letting Go (Dutty Love)" (377,000) and Jay Sean's "2012" (355,000).
Despite the number of hits, Nicki still has to tackle releasing her debut. The album, Pink Friday, is set to hit stores November 23.
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