Who Is Nicki Minaj?
Born in the Caribbean, Nicki Minaj moved to New York as a 5-year-old and has overcome a difficult childhood to become a successful hip-hop artist. Her label-mate Lil Wayne calls her “an icon” who has “reached far beyond anything I would have imagined. Nicki will go down as one of the best to do it in the history of music.”
Early Life
Minaj was born Onika Tanya Maraj on December 8, 1982, in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago, and moved with her family to Queens, New York, when she was 5 years old. Minaj’s father was a severe drug addict with a long history of violence. At one point, he set fire to the family’s home in a failed attempt to kill Minaj’s mother. Those early struggles, Minaj has said, helped fuel her drive to rise above the life her parents knew. “I’ve always had this female-empowerment thing in the back of my mind,” she told Details magazine, “because I wanted my mother to be stronger, and she couldn’t be. I thought, ‘If I’m successful, I can change her life.'”
To reach that point, the young Minaj developed personas for herself that would allow her to reinvent herself. An early incarnation was “Cookie,” then came “Harajuku Barbie” before finally settling on Nicki Minaj. “Fantasy was my reality,” she has said. Minaj clearly had a knack for performance. At the age of 12, she authored her first rap, then went on to delve into acting at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, the school that inspired the movie Fame. But her acting career didn’t take off, and she took up a range of steady jobs, including waitressing at Red Lobster, where she was fired for being rude to customers.
Early Career
Determined to make it in the music business, Minaj took on backup singing roles for local New York City rappers, including Full Force. Soon, she began writing her own material. She was eventually discovered by the Dirty Money CEO Fendi, who came across Minaj’s MySpace page, loved what he heard, and signed her to his label.
That connection led Minaj to Lil Wayne, who collaborated with her on a series of mixtapes, the first of which, Playtime Is Over, was released in April 2007. This and subsequent mixtapes, including Sucka Free (2008) and Beam Me Up Scotty (2009), showcased Minaj’s female swagger and out-front style. She signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money label in August, 2009, becoming its first ever female artist. She solidified her growing rep with appearances on the We Are Young Money compilation album (2009), also collaborating with Mariah Carey and Robin Thicke.
Debut Album: ‘Pink Friday’
By early 2010, anticipation had built up around Minaj’s debut album, which was scheduled for release that fall. In April of that year, she released her first single, “Massive Attack,” followed by “Your Love.” Two months later she won Best Hip Hop Female at the annual BET Awards. She dedicated the award to Lil Wayne. The Pink Friday album dropped that November, with eight singles released to promote it. It went triple platinum, and received generally positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly’s Brad Wete was reminded of “her labelmate Drake — fully aware of how amazing she is, but also how fragile.” Minaj displayed a range of alter-egos on her releases, including Onika, Nicki Lewinsky and Roman Zolanski.
