By her own accounts, Nicki Minaj didn’t want to drop her debut album this year. Despite setting a Billboard record by becoming the first female rapper to be featured on seven of Nielsen Soundscan’s 200 best-selling song’s this year, Nicki Minaj repeated her earlier statements to Honey magazine that she never intended to release an album this year.
“I wanted to release my album next year,” she told Toi Troutman of Honey, during a previous interview. “I don’t think I have a big enough fan base.”
The Soundscan numbers disproved her fears, and she has since found herself rhyming next to the likes of Kanye West, Jay-Z and Eminem. Her bars in “Monster”
brought praise from some of her harshest critics, and Nicki points to her over-animated delivery as the reason why. In an interview with YRB magazine, Nicki called the “Monster” verse her “breakout moment.”
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“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,” she explained. “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.”
After initially telling MTV Eminem wasn’t in love with the song she proposed as a duet, Nicki secured another high-profile collaboration when Slim Shady agreed to appear on a re-worked version of “Roman’s Revenge.”
“We both have our own world, and we’re just colliding,” she said of the duet. “I feel like we’re on a freaking collision course or something. But it’s very equal. I want a piece of that Slim Shady world because I feel like it may have subconsciously influenced me.”
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Exclusive information about Pink Friday, including what Nicki Minaj thinks about Lil Kim and other felame emcees who have tried to bait her into a feud can be found in the full YRB interview.
