Who Is Nicki Minaj?
Nicki Minaj, who was born in the Caribbean and moved to New York when she was 5 years old, overcame a challenging upbringing to become a popular hip-hop singer. She is "an icon" who has "reached far beyond anything I would have imagined," according to her label-mate Lil Wayne. In the annals of music, Nicki will be remembered as one of the best to do it.
Early Years
Onika Tanya Maraj, better known as Minaj, was born on December 8, 1982 in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago. When she was 5 years old, her family relocated to Queens, New York. Minaj's father had a violent past and was a heavy drug addict. He once tried to kill Minaj's mother by setting fire to the family's home. According to Minaj, these early setbacks fueled her desire to surpass the standard of living her parents had. She told Details magazine, "I've always had this female empowerment idea in the back of my mind because I wanted my mother to be stronger, and she couldn't be. 'If I'm successful, I can alter her life,' I reasoned.
The young Minaj created personalities for herself that would enable her to reinvent herself in order to get to that point. "Cookie" was a previous incarnation, followed by "Harajuku Barbie," and then Nicki Minaj. She has claimed that "fantasy was my reality." Minaj has a natural talent for stage presence. She wrote her first rap when she was 12 years old, then pursued acting at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, the institution that served as the basis for the film Fame. She took on a variety of solid jobs, including one as a waiter at Red Lobster, where she was fired for being impolite to patrons, but her acting career never really took off.
Earlier Years
Minaj began singing as a backup singer for New York City rappers like Full Force in an effort to get into the music industry. She soon started producing her own content. Fendi, the CEO of Dirty Money, ultimately stumbled across Minaj's MySpace profile, fell in love with what he heard, and signed her to his company.
Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj worked together on a number of mixtapes, the first of which, Playtime Is Over, was released in April 2007. This link introduced Minaj to Lil Wayne. This mixtape, as well as those that came after it, such as Sucka Free (2008) and Beam Me Up Scotty (2009), displayed Minaj's female swagger and assertive manner. In August 2009, she joined Lil Wayne's Young Money label and became the imprint's first female artist. She collaborated with Mariah Carey and Robin Thicke on the We Are Young Money compilation album (2009), which helped her establish her increasing reputation.
'Pink Friday' is the debut album.
The expectation for Minaj's debut album, which was set to be released that fall, had grown by early 2010. She debuted her first single, "Massive Attack," in April of that year, and then "Your Love." She won Best Hip Hop Female at the annual BET Awards two months later.She credited Lil Wayne with the honor. Eight singles were released to promote the Pink Friday album, which was released in November. It achieved triple platinum status and garnered mostly favorable reviews. Brad Wete of Entertainment Weekly compared her to "her labelmate Drake — fully aware of how amazing she is, but also how fragile." On her albums, Minaj used a variety of personas, such as Onika, Nicki Lewinsky, and Roman Zolanski.
Mariah Carey and "American Idol" Feud
Minaj makes a cameo on the hit television show American Idol in March 2012. She asked Jennifer Lopez, a judge on the competition at the time, to "scoot over a little bit" so she could sit at the judges' table.Then, rumors of a conflict between Lopez and Minaj spread, which Minaj later denied. However, Minaj seems to have gotten her dream later that year when she was confirmed as a judge on American Idol. It didn't take long for her and colleague judge Mariah Carey to get into an argument. During the early auditions for the show, the two appeared to take an immediate disliking to one another and engaged in an open argument.
The two battled it out on television once the show's 12th season debuted in early 2013. During Charlotte, North Carolina, tryouts, Minaj and Carey got into a fight, and Minaj stormed off stage.According to the New York Daily News, Carey later claimed that Minaj had threatened to hurt her physically, which led her to decide to hire more security. Minaj has also criticized the program in a tweet, writing that it "is NOT a singing competition."
The Pinkprint and Roman Reloaded.
With her 2012 Super Bowl performance, Minaj reached a broad national audience. She participated in the well-known halftime show during the game with Madonna. Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, Minaj's follow-up album, was made available shortly after. The song was an enormous success, topping the pop, R&B, and rap charts. The debut hit was the catchy dance song "Starships." Soon after that came "Pound the Alarm" and "Va Va Voom." She then performed."Roman Holiday" at the Grammy Awards the same year.
From her subsequent album, The Pinkprint, which was published on December 12, 2014, eight additional singles were made available. Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Ariana Grande, and Drake were among the album's impressive roster of celebrity guests. She earned the Best Female Hip Hop Artist award at the 2016 BET Awards for the seventh time in a row, and the album went double platinum.
Film roles and additional business pursuits.
Minaj had been expanding her career in various ways. In 2012's Ice Age: Continental Drift, she voiced the mammoth Steffie, and in 2014's The Other Woman, costarring Cameron Diaz, she made her film debut. Later, she was nominated for a Teen Choice Award in 2016 for her performance in Barbershop: The Next Cut. In addition to having her own fragrance brand, she has fronted numerous endorsement partnerships and advertising campaigns, including those for MAC Cosmetics, Adidas Originals, and Pepsi. She owns stock in the streaming service Tidal. Early in 2017, she split up with the rapper Meek Mill.
Additional Hits including "Queen"
Minaj's musical priorities haven't changed despite all of her other endeavors. She contributed to numerous singles in 2017, and with the simultaneous release and success of "No Frauds," "Regret in Your Tears," and "Changed It," she surpassed Aretha Franklin's previous record for the most female artist Billboard Hot 100 entries.
The following April, Minaj released two brand-new songs, "Chun-Li" and "Barbie Tingz." She later released "Rich Sex," which featured Lil Wayne, and "Bed," which she co-wrote with Ariana Grande. She also collaborated with the contentious rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine on the song "FEFE." The artist began her Queen Radio show on Apple Music's Beats 1 station on August 8, and two days later, Queen, her fourth studio album, debuted at No. 2 in the charts.
In Frankfurt, Germany, at the beginning of 2019, Minaj and rapper Juice Wrld launched The Nicki Wrld Tour. The artist released "Megatron," her first solo song of the year, in late June in addition to her other collaborations.
Although the artist later assured her fans that there would be more music to come, Minaj took a step toward realizing her family goals by getting married to boyfriend Kenneth Petty in October, following the release of The Angry Birds Movie 2, in which she had a voice role. In September, after the release of The Angry Birds Movie 2, Minaj delivered the stunning tweet that she'd decided to retire to "have my family."
After beginning the year 2020 with her duet with Meghan Trainor, "Nice to Meet Ya," Minaj made a guest judge appearance on the RuPaul's Drag Race season 12 debut. She later collaborated with Doja Cat on a remix of "Say So," which became the first of Nicki Minaj's songs to top the Billboard Hot 100.
Personal Life
Minaj and Petty got hitched in October 2019. She stated that she was pregnant in July 2020. On September 30, 2020, Minaj and Petty welcomed their boy as their first child.
Rappers Meek Mill and Safaree Samuels were once Minaj's partners.