Nicki Minaj had a notable presence during the MTV Video Music Awards yesterday (August 24), an event that was important to her. 

“I’m working on my album and this performance is the first thing that I literally took off working on the album to do,” she said in an interview with MTV’s Rob Markman. “It was important to me that my fans saw a great performance of ‘Anaconda.’ And of course I had three performances to work on, and I love those records, and I love the artists; I couldn’t say no.” 

Before appearing at the VMAs, Minaj was making headlines with the release of her “Anaconda” cover art and video. But Nicki says she didn’t anticipate the buzz the vid, which broke Vevo’s single-day play record with 9.6 million plays in 24 hours, and song cover generated. 

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“I didn’t expect that,” she says. “I didn’t even expect the picture getting the controversy it got. I didn’t expect that, so for the video to break a record, I was just like, ‘What the?’ …I didn’t think the video was so sexy or crazy, but I guess. I don’t know.”

Some of the most noteworthy scenes from the “Anaconda” video for Young Money fans may have been the ones that included Drake. In the clip, Drake received a lap dance from Nicki. How did Drake react to the lap dance? 

“After the lap dance, he was excited like hell,” she says. “He was like, ‘Yo, do you understand? I’m the man after this video come out!’ We were just laughing. But it’s always good to do stuff like that with Drake because we’re so close.”

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