Artist Profile: Nicki Minaj

Onika Tanya Maraj, best known as Nicki Minaj, is a female hip hop/rap artist and songwriter, she was born on December 8th, 1982 in Saint James Trinidad and Tobago. When she turned 5 she moved to Queens New York with her mom. Nicki Minaj went from being an overlooked artist to being the queen of female rap with her quirky and different personas attracting and catching the eyes of different audiences.  

In high school, Nicki did a lot of plays and participated in a lot of acting related things at her school. After she graduated, she went on to be an underground rapper, her original rapper name was Cookie, then she went on as Harajuku Barbie, then she settled for Nicki Minaj. Nicki was determined to make her rapping career take off, she often took backup singing roles for local rappers in New York. She was discovered by Dirty Money CEO of Fendi through her MySpace and went on to sign her into his label as he was impressed with her rapping/composing skills Through that, Nicki Minaj got connections to Lil Wayne, he collaborated with her for many of the mixtapes she released before her debut album. Many of her mixtapes got her a lot of hype before her official debut. Her first mixtape was Playtime is Over (2009) which included songs like “1-900-Ms-Minaj” and “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (ft. Lil Wayne)”. In her first mixtape, she focused a lot on rapping and doing vocals for the chorus. A trait that Nicki has which her audience seems to enjoy is that she writes all of her own verses and raps. In the mixtapes she released later on, she kept the same style and same vibe as Playtime is Over.

Nicki Minaj released her debut album Pink Friday on November 22, 2010. In this album Nicki really showed something she hadn’t done with her mixtapes, she showed her full potential. This album was very diverse, some songs having a lot of pop elements like “Super Bass” and “Your Love”, and then there were songs that showed more of her rapper side like “Roman’s Revenge (ft. Eminem)”. This album also had many collaborations with a lot of well-known names in the hip hop/rap industry like Drake in her song “Moment 4 Life” and “Blazin (ft. Kanye West)”. This album became a hit and instantly started breaking records as Nicki had hyped the album up a couple of months before its release. Her collaboration with Kanye on the song “Monster” was a big hit and helped boost her album as Kanye’s audience seemed to enjoy the song. Her verse in this song really goes to show her versatility as well. In the music video, she portrays different personas of herself, one being Roman and the other being barbie, one side being “evil” while the other side was “pure”. Over the years her albums changed in genre and direction, Pink Friday had a lot of pop elements with rap embedded in the songs, while her later album The Pinkprint had more soul and R&B elements while still keeping her signature rapping in the songs. Her newest album Queen also has a lot of soul elements, however, in this album, Nicki doesn’t add pop elements, instead, she keeps her album as soul and hip-hop, which is very different from her first album.  

Nicki Minaj has progressed as an artist, going from unrecognized to the queen of female rap. Not only that, but you can see her versatility in her albums over the years and how she has progressed as an artist with her music. Nicki Minaj will continue to exceed our expectations and she will continue to evolve. As a fan, I hope she tries branching out to more genres as I feel she can pull anything off, but for now, we just have to stay tuned for what she has in store next.