Nicki Minaj: Not Your Average Chick

Hip Hop | hiphopucit | July 7, 2010 at 8:34 am

NICKI ON HER SOUND

I want to be a balanced artist so its not gimmicky. What people don’t know is that before I was doing that craziness I was doing me, I was just doing regular sounding rap that anyone could hear and identify with. But once I started doing all that weird shit—im not mad at it because it got everyone’s attention, but I can sometimes forget that I come from a real authentic place in hip-hop. Im not someone who got signed to a record label who said ‘hey maybe you should do weird voices.’ No. this is all years of me learning me and my style, and decide to do something different that would get everyone’s attention. But I always knew I wanted to come back to my original sound, and the album is going to be a plethora of different sounds. Sometimes people close to me they have their preferences, their favorite Nicki thing, and I have to stand up sometimes and block out the noise.

NICKI ON FRIENDSHIP

Your friends when you don’t speak to them for a long time they do what the rest of the world does: they research you on the internet, and then they ask you questions that make me cringe. You would think your friends know what is a lie and what’s not. But the thing is, they don’t know that person—they know you. They don’t know Nicki Minaj, that’s why they’re questioning things. It’s hurtful sometimes to hear people I consider my friends ask me certain things. My mother would never! Never. People that really know you shouldn’t have to ask if you flew to the moon last night and came back high because they know that’s not you. [Laughs]

HIGH SCHOOL STYLE POINTS

When I first went in there I had baggy clothes but then I met this girl who was older than me by one year, and winded up being my best friend for ten years. And she was dressing like a girly girl and I looked at her and I was like [gasp!]. She was feminine, and wearing makeup. I had never worn makeup and I remember one day after school, and she was like come to my house! And no lie, she lived like five minutes away from me. so I went over and she made my face up and I looked in the mirror and I thought that I looked sooooo beautiful [cackles!]. I was like ‘Oh my God!’ I did not want to take that makeup off! I never wanted to wash my face. She put makeup on me and after that I was going to the pharmacy buying makeup stuff. It wasn’t like MAC it was like going to the pharmacy and getting the $5.99 makeup thing and putting it on your face.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

I had a dream that I should go with Wayne and that’s what I did. I’ve never regretted it. Now…I mean I’m just a business savvy person by nature and I weigh out all my decisions. The average person hears $50,000 and jumps. I hear $50,000 and, you know, I need an explanation with it. I need details, and I’ll probably be like that about $50 million. Most artists at my stage in the game don’t have a business manager. I have a business manager. I’m talking about and looking over my finances on a regular basis. I’m not doing this to be flashy I’m doing this to secure wealth. Not cash. They’re two different things. I’ve made calculated decisions and people don’t always understand my process but they always get it later…I’m wrong every now and then but I’m usually right when it comes to things like that.

ON RECORDING WITH MARIAH CAREY

That was insane! I mean let alone I’m a huge fan and she’s a huge icon. No album out! Female. Rapper. Doesn’t happen. That does not happen. I don’t care how far back you look. I dare any hip-hop historian to tell me when that has ever happened. It doesn’t. And I still don’t know why it did.

DISS HER, YOU’LL NEVER GET A REPLY FOR IT

My diss record is my success rate, and how much I can charge to be somewhere for 30 minutes. That’s my diss record. The fact that I can pay your mortgage for a year in 30 minutes. That’s my diss record. That diss record makes everyone go ooooooh word nicki went in! That’s all I need.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE CHICK

I am way too much for a man. I’m like a boy myself, so all my male friends they like me because I’m like them, and they cant say dumb shit they can say to another regular girl, because I don’t believe it. I don’t buy it. I talk that shit myself just like them. I talk money shit just like them, nothing they can say impresses me. Mainly I think I just call their bluff, and I kind of intimidate them. But I love them nevertheless! They do have something going for themselves.

GIRL TALK

If I say I only stop for pedestrian and a real, real bad lesbian—did that say and then I go home and have sex with that lesbian? I just embrace all people of all lifestyles and I don’t tell them they are bad people. And I say girls are beautiful and girls are sexy and they need to be told that, and if they don’t have anyone to tell them that and mean it, I’m gonna tell them that. But I feel like people always wanna define me and I don’t wanna be defined.-VIBE