Her lightning-speed flow and verbal trickery hypercharged the pop world.
Nicki Minaj Video Essentials
Nicki's videos are just like her raps: awesome.
Set List: Nicki Minaj’s Pink Friday 2 World Tour
Every song Nicki Minaj is performing on her hit-packed, over-the-top 2024 tour.
Nicki Minaj: Chill
Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
Nicki Minaj: Deep Cuts
Threatening barbs and beast-mode rhymes.
Nicki Minaj: Flipped
From hits to deep cuts, breaking down the samples that have inspired one of music’s most vital artists.
Nicki Minaj: Fitness+ Spotlight
Level up with the Harajuku Barbie and her most upbeat tracks.
Nicki Minaj: Influences
These hip-hop titans and pop superstars gave Onika big ideas.
Biografia dell'artista
Few artists have impacted 21st century rap like Nicki Minaj. Born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad and Tobago in 1982 but raised mostly in Queens, Minaj attended Manhattan’s prestigious LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (the inspiration for the movie Fame) before trying to make it as an actor— a past evidenced by the deep performative streak that runs through her music today. Turning to rap in her twenties, Minaj quickly became one of the brightest stars in Lil’ Wayne’s Young Money universe. Her work—shapeshifting, ferocious, cartoonish, and often filled with oddball voices and alter egos—is as capable of breaking hearts (“Super Bass”) as it is detaching heads (her breakout verse on Kanye West’s 2010 “Monster,” in which she arguably outshined both West and fellow guest Jay-Z). Minaj’s electrifying presence has also made her a secret weapon in the pop world, where she's just as likely to share credits with David Guetta and Justin Bieber as Ludacris and Future. On top of her own success, Minaj helped rap—and rap audiences—look past narratives of gritty realism for something fluid and playful, but no less genuine or powerful. Railing against the double standard faced by women in entertainment, the outspoken Minaj once told MTV, “You have to be a beast. That’s the only way they respect you.”