Nicki Minaj

/wiki/Nicki Minajcreator
You're not looking at her face, are you?

"Pink wig, thick ass, give 'em whiplash
I think big, get cash, make 'em blink fast"

—Nicki Minaj, from "Monster" by Kanye West

Nicki Minaj is a Trinidadian-born American rapper, singer, songwriter and model. Born Onika Tanya Maraj in Trinidad, she attended and graduated from New York's LaGuardia High School, a performing arts school where she was in the drama program. During that time period, she started rapping and making mixtapes and thrived on the underground hip-hop scene where got much accolades and praise and even won Best Female Artist at the Underground Music Awards.

She eventually got the attention of Lil Wayne, and was signed to his record label/imprint Young Money Entertainment where she leaped into the mainstream scene by guest rapping on just about every popular artist's song. In November 2010, she released her debut album, Pink Friday.

Discography:
  • Mixtapes
    • Playtime Is Over (2007)
    • Sucker Free (2008)
    • Beam Me Up Scotty (2009)
    • All Pink Everything (2011)
Nicki Minaj provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Abusive Parents: She had an abusive father.
  • Alter Ego Acting: Onika Maraj is her real self, Nicki Minaj is her larger-than-life "Harajuku Barbie" identity, and Roman Zolanski is the angry, twisted version of herself.
  • A Wild Rapper Appears: During “Turn Me On,” she sings everything, except for one, short section, which she raps.
  • Bi the Way
  • Blatant Lies: "Excuse me, I'm sorry, I'm really such a lady..."
  • Boastful Rap: The focus of some of her songs, while others have a verse or two dedicated to it. Usually occurs in the form of calling herself the “baddest bitch” or “queen,” and especially prevalent whenever Roman's the one singing.
  • British Accent: Occasionally uses one, and even narrated the opening track of Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy using it. Additionally, her Martha persona, who is the mother of Roman, another of her personas, speaks with one. During her 2012 Grammys performance, when not rapping, Roman spoke this way, too. Most people note that it's actually a good accent.
  • But Not Too Black/But Not Too Foreign: She is of Afro-Trinidadian and Indian descent. The But Not Too Foreign label comes in because her birthplace is disputed between New York and Trinidad.
    • On an MTV documentary she confirmed that she was born in Trinidad and moved to New York when she was five.
  • Camp: "Moment 4 Life"'s intro.
  • Camp Gay: Her Alter Ego Roman Zolanski.
  • Canon Discontinuity: After the flop of "Massive Attack" as a debut single, it wasn't included on the final version of the Pink Friday album.
  • Catch Phrase: Any variation or combination of "Young Money" or "Barbie".
  • Costume Porn
  • Distaff Counterpart: Subverted. There were remarkable similarities between Nicki and Lil Wayne with their free-associative cadences, hard rhyming, and explicitly sexual content back when Nicki put out her mixtapes, but with Nicki's new Lighter and Softer sound and style on Pink Friday, the two have less in common.
  • Double Standard: She discusses this extensively in her MTV special "My Time Now",where she says that when Lil Wayne says that he doesn't want to talk to anybody, and wants everything ready for him, he's being a boss but when she does the same thing, she's a bitch.
  • The Exorcism of Roman: The theme of her "Roman Holiday" performance at the 2012 Grammy Awards.
  • Genre Shift: Not necessarily a shift, so much as an expansion of the genres she works with. As time has gone on, she's branched out from fast-paced, hard raps into pop and slower, more quiet rhymes.
  • Genki Girl
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: "Super Bass", masking references to drugs, oral sex and condoms using a combination of fast rapping and unconventional pronunciations. Then there's the whole "Superb Ass" argument.
  • I Have Many Names: Nicki Minaj, Onika Tanya Maraj, Roman Zolanski, Martha, Harajuku Barbie, Nicki Lewinsky…
  • In Da Club: "Pound the Alarm", and "Beez In the Trap"'s music video.
  • Incredibly Long Note: In "Stupid Hoe" and "Dance (A$$)" with Big Sean.
  • Intercourse with You: "Whip It" "Sex In The Lounge"
  • Large Ham: She can be quite dramatic when rapping.
  • Lighter and Softer: The Pink Friday album, which was deliberate. Nicki wanted to go in a different direction than most female rappers and avoid much of the sex and hard rhymes.
    • The new tracks added on Roman Reloaded seem to subvert this, however.
  • Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Arguably her whole Harajuku Barbie persona with the colored wigs, vocal shifts, and... interesting facial expressions.
  • Metaphorgotten: We can only hope so anyway in "Did it On 'Em": "All these bitches is my sons, and I'mma go and get some bibs for 'em / A couple formulas, little pretty lids on 'em / if I had a dick, I would pull it out and piss on 'em"
  • Mind Screw: Her scene in the video for Kanye West's "Monster"
  • Mood Whiplash: For the most part, the mainstream only knew her as the (ostensibly) Lighter and Softer Harajuku Barbie, with all the bright colors the love of pink. This left her performance of "Roman Holiday" at the Grammys (which started with her in a confessional and ended with faking an exorcism on stage) as something that came completely out of left field.
    • It's something of a Mood Whiplash for her songs in general, as well. Upon analyzing the lyrics, the song suggests a youth being medicated by his rather deranged mother, who disapproves of his behavior; this, itself, is a bit heavier than her usual work. Then the Grammys performance adds on a layer of exorcism, and the boy (Roman) begging for it to stop while his mother, Martha, continues to tell him he'll be fine. If you think about it, this could be legitimately terrifying and is notably darker than anything she's done thus far.
  • Motor Mouth: Very much capable of this.
  • N-Word Privileges
  • Old Shame: The lines "Did a couple of tapes/ made a couple mistakes" in I'm The Best.
  • Loony Character, Nice Actor: On stage, Nicki (or whichever persona she's under at the time) seems like a complete nutbar. Offstage, she seems like a well-mannered and sweet, if slightly quirky, girl.
  • Put on a Bus: Roman Zolanski in the "Moment 4 Life" video intro: "He's off to boarding school, him and Slim Shady, they were wreaking havoc over the industry darling..."
  • Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Pink Friday is not overtly sexual and written from a feminine point of view. This had to led a lot of criticism decrying her as "soft" and not going as hard as the guys.
  • Sampling: Your Love uses the Annie Lennox song "No More I Love You's" and pretty much just added more bass.
    • Check It Out with will.i.am samples from "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.
    • Blazin with Kanye West very faintly samples "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds.
    • Girls Fall Like Dominoes" samples "Dominoes" by The Big Pink.
    • "Right Thru Me" samples the opening of Joe Satriani's "Always With Me, Always With You."
    • Anaconda samples "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot
  • Shout-Out: Her 2012 Grammys performance of “Roman Holiday” had a brief, The Exorcist-inspired introduction, which ended with this exchange:

Priest: “What's your name, child?”
Roman, in a corner on the ceiling: “ROMAAAAAAAN!!”

  • Signature Song: "Super Bass" to the mainstream ; "Itty Bitty Piggy" for her mixtapes.
  • Singer Namedrop: Nicki sometimes namedrops her regular stage name ("Super Bass"), her Barbie persona ("Massive Attack", "Monster"), her Roman persona (most songs featuring Roman, "Gimme All Your Luvin'") and even her real name ("Starships").

"My name is Onika
you can call me Nicki."

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