It seems like Nicki Minaj has been in the press everyday for the past few weeks.
She just released her 4th studio album on the 10th, Queen, but the album isn’t the only thing people are talking about. From the shocking interviews, to the Twitter wars, to the tweets and Instagram posts about her album sales; Nicki is creating quite the buzz. This has everyone wondering, is this all a ploy to get people to listen to the album?
Last Wednesday, she gave out the #CSOTD award a.k.a “C%ck Sucker Of The Day,” on her Instagram, to a writer from Billboard, who twisted up her words in a headline, regarding the rescheduling of her North American leg of the tour. The headline made it seems as though she was canceling the tour. Well, Nicki saw the headline and took to IG to show her frustrations. She lashed out at the writer, and asked her fans to find out who the writer was. But the writer wasn’t the first person Nicki gave an award to.
Just last Tuesday, Nicki did her 4th episode of Queen Radio with Apple Music, and yet again called out rapper, Travis Scott. She gave Travis, “Hoe Nigga Of The Week” award, because she believes he sabotaged her getting the number one album for that week. She continued with, “What we’re not going to do, is have this autotune man, come up in here, selling fucking sweaters, and telling y’all he sold half a fucking million albums.” Nicki also claimed that he had his girlfriend and mother of his child, Kylie Jenner, promote his album and tour so he can sell more records. This all started from the reports that stated Travis Scott, Astroworld album was going to be number 1 on Billboard 200 for another week. When reports came back to Nicki, she took to Twitter to get out her thoughts. She even claimed she spoke with Travis Scott over the phone, and that he knew that he doesn’t have the number album, and the tour merch was counting them as album sales. Well at the VMA’S last Monday night, Travis made it clear that he’s sticking with what Billboard said, and that he indeed had the number one album for that week.
But that wasn’t the first time she came at a rapper. When the Queen album was released last week, everyone was going crazy over the track, “Barbie Dreams,” the record where Nicki takes jabs at a bunch of rappers and entertainers. The day the album dropped, she had everyone talking about that song. And to be honest, I think that was all apart of her plan. Yes it’s a fun record, but she had to know that the lyrics would stir up some controversy.
Before the album sales drama, it was drama with her and ex, Safaree. Two weeks ago she did an interview with FunkMaster Flex from Hot 97, where she revealed a lot of tea about their relationship. The rapper excused Safaree of stealing her credit cards to pay for prostitutes, while they were still in a relationship. When Safaree got wind of what was said about him in the interview, he took to Twitter to get out his side of the story. Safaree tweeted, “Unless I really cared still I could not let the mention of someone’s name get me that riled up. That looks like some1 who either still cares or just holding on to a lot of hate towards someone. How many times have I said I never wrote ur raps? Nobody even talks about that anymore.” Nicki responded to the tweets, elaborating on him stealing from her, and how she paid $12k to get his hairline fixed. Safaree then responded with a series of tweets of his own, clearing his name in the accusation, and he even spilled some tea. He claimed that Nicki stabbed him, and that it was so bad that he had to be taken away in an ambulance, lying to the EMTs that he tried to commit suicide, so they wouldn’t lock her up.
And the day before that Twitter war with Safaree, Nicki and Love & Hip Hop star, DJ Self exchanged some words on Twitter. Nicki responded to a fan who said, “They would never just attack a random female rapper like that OTHER than Nicki Minaj…the hell did Nicki do to DJ Self for that kind of animosity?” Nicki replied, on how he’s (DJ Self) mad because she wouldn’t give him a drop or a hug, how he was dissing other female rapper (Cardi B) thinking that would make the two cool, and how he used to be a respectable DJ, now he’s just a reality star. Self responded, denying those claims, and that he thinks Nicki is mad at him because he’s friends with Safaree, and female rapper, Dream Doll.
In speaking of Cardi B and other female rappers, Nicki had a lot to say regarding those topics in a few interviews . She did a live interview with media personality, Elliot Wilson, where Nicki was asked about the alleged beef with her and Cardi B. Nicki claimed that there wasn’t any beef, and that the two hashed it out at the Met Gala. But in the same interview, she proceeds to take slight jabs at Cardi, saying no female rapper can compete, how every two years they claim a new female rapper is going to take her spot, but yet she’s the number one female rapper. And even though her and Cardi are “cool,” she would be ready “if Cardi comes for her.” At her interview with Genius, Nicki goes on a rant about how she was continuously bigging up other female rappers coming up in the game, and now “they’re training new bitches to disrespect her.” In the Flex interview, Nicki makes a comment about record labels paying radio stations and media personalities to talk positive about other female rappers, and to bash her. Which was a comment towards Cardi, because there have been reports that Cardi’s label, Atlantic pays media people and radio stations to play Cardi’s music. While Cardi made a few statements regarding those statements on IG Live and the VMAS, which everyone thinks it was a response to Nicki, the two women recently ended up unfollowing each other on Instagram.
With all these antics and drama, people are questioning if this is her just her acting out, or another way to try to sell more albums. The last time Nicki Minaj put an album, was almost 4 years, entitled The Pinkprint, and at the time, she was the only female rapper getting a lot of attention. In other words, she had the game on lock. And I think when she took a hiatus, Remy Ma made a comeback with her song, “All the Way Up,” in 2016 then Cardi B dropped “Bodak Yellow,” in the summer of 2017, and suddenly Nicki wasn’t the only popular female rapper. Now, I think Nicki is realizing she has competition.
This was Nicki’s lowest first week sales for an album to date, and maybe her being in the news everyday and creating controversy is a way to make people buy and stream it . Either way, its working, as all this attention is definitely making people pay attention to what the Queen has to say.
