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She’s caught hip-hop’s finicky attention thanks to her lyrics, flow, style, looks and major co-signs. With the current lack of female MCs, and her small slice of fame growing larger every day, Nicki Minaj is ready to fill the void.

Interview: Vanessa Satten
Images: Jonathan Mannion

Nicki Minaj is on a solo journey. True, she’s got backup from Lil Wayne and his Young Money crew, but the rocket to female-rap stardom she’s climbed on only carries one passenger at a time.

Throughout hip-hop’s male-dominated history, women have struggled to find their collective voice. A select few have achieved rap-star status (Lil’ Kim, Foxy Brown, Eve), while a couple are bona fide superstars (Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill). But none of that scares the 25-year-old unabashed rapstress, who has rocketed to fame since signing to Young Money/Cash Money/Universal seven months ago.

Onika Maraj’s entrance into hip-hop was generic by most artist’s standards. In 2006, the Southside Jamaica, Queens, native broke out as a new solo artist, and, after appearing on The Come UpThe Carter Edition street DVD, she caught the eyes and ears of music megastar Lil Wayne. Over the next three years, Nicki dropped two mixtapes, 2007’s Playtime Is Over and 2008’s Sucka Free. The following year, she put out her third, and most popular tape to date, Beam Me Up Scotty. While Nicki’s ties to Young Money were getting stronger, she linked up with Gucci Mane and his So Icey crew, later sharing management with the Atlanta trap star.

Over the course of 2009, the New York MC juggled double duty as the leading lady of two Southern rap cliques. In August, she officially signed to Young Money/Cash Money/Universal, approximately two months after rising star Drake signed to the same labels.

Rolling into the new decade, Nicki has stayed on course, while her fan base has grown with every guest appearance and video. First, she had a big feature on Yo Gotti’s “5 Star Chick (Remix),” alongside Gucci and Trina. Next Nicki jumped on the Robin Thicke collabo “Shakin’ It 4 Daddy.” Then, she had a major look on Mariah Carey’s “Up Out My Face,” show stopping performances on the Young Money singles “Bedrock” and “Roger That,” a feature on Wayne’s Rebirth cut “Knockout,” and her most recent prime-time moment, a starring role on Ludacris’s monster smash “My Chick Bad."

Now it’s the Black Barbie’s time for a real takeoff. With her first official single, “Massive Attack,” for her yet-to-be-titled debut still under wraps at press time, Nicki’s May 4, 2010 release is anticipated by almost as many heads as is her Young Money brother Drake’s debut, Thank Me Later. Both artists will be dropping LPs while Wayne is behind bars, unable to be there to lend his full A-list support.

On two Friday afternoons in March, spread across her jam-packed schedule, XXL caught up with Nicki in Los Angeles to chat about her travels and shooting for the stars.

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Your buzz has been growing more and more each month. How has that felt for you?
Yeah, I guess it has been growing, thank God. I dunno, it’s been an exciting whirlwind. I never really know what to expect. But the buzz has definitely been heightening, so I’m happy.

When did you first start to feel that things were coming together for you?
I definitely think that, when I shot the [“Up Out My Face”] video with Mariah Carey, I started feeling like, Wait a minute, this is not something I really ever envisioned for my life just nine months before that.

So growing up you’re a fan of hip-hop. You’re listening to it, watching it, learning to rap, and you see what the open lane is and figure how you can try to fill it? Is that how it works?
I never look at it like that; I just kinda do what I feel. I never knew what lane I would fill, [or that] I would fill a lane at all. I didn’t even really contemplate that far down the road. I just started having fun, and a lot of that came from me seeing Wayne dare to be different, and I started feeling like I can be a multifaceted rapper. I don’t have to be a one-dimensional female rapper. Once I put that in perspective, it was like everything just got easier for me, because I no longer wanted to fit in anybody’s box—I just wanted to be Nicki…

Clearly there’s an opening, because females in hip-hop come so far and few between, but the winners make an open lane out of a closed lane. The winners just say, “I am,” and it happens, and they don’t do a lot of thinking and guessing and planning about what they can do—they just do it. And that’s kinda like how I am.

You are both a new female rapper and a new rapper from New York. Do people recognize your gender more than that you’re a New York artist?
I think very often people miss that I’m from New York, and I don’t really know why that is, but I remember I said on Twitter one time, “Shout out to Queens,” and all of the gay boys thought I was talking to them, and I realized that people haven’t gotten that I’m Southside Jamaica, Queens, New York City. I feel like I say it a lot, but I guess I’m not saying it that much, or it’s that I’m so diverse and I don’t always rap with the New York accent—I switch it up, you know. People don’t see me as just repping one city or one state. I actually really like that. That was always my goal: to be able to bridge that gap, you know, whether it’s to London.

When I listen to my favorite artists, I don’t care where they’re from. When you listen to Whitney Houston, you don’t care if she’s from New Jersey or France. Like, she has an incredible voice. So I’m glad that sometimes people don’t put me [as the] “new, New York artist.” But I am very proud to rep New York. Who wouldn’t be? We’ve seen the best male and female artists, so it’s an honor to be from New York.

When you started working with both Gucci and Wayne you were essentially down with two crews at the same time. How did you manage to establish both of those relationships and create situations where neither of them worked against each other and were beneficial to you?
First of all, I think if I was a guy we wouldn’t even be having this conversation about that because guys if you look at the way men work in hip-hop, they don’t care about crews, they team up and feature together all the time and I think because women [have] predominately been a part of one crew, people were just judging it by how the past relationships with women in hip-hop kinda panned out. But what I do is what the boys do, I team up with who I wanna team up with. I’m Young Money, period, but that doesn’t stop me from working with Gucci and working with Jeezy and working with anybody the same way it doesn’t stop Wayne from working with Gucci and Wayne’s been working with Jeezy. I don’t see why people question it other than people scrutinize women so much, but I’m glad that I was able to kind of do away with those myths that a female can only be down with one crew. I love Gucci to death, Gucci’s a great friend of mine but I am Young Money and, again, the guys do it all the time.

Do you get tired of being labeled the female MC?
You know what, I’m a female entertainer, but I don’t let it offend me when people call me a female MC or female rapper, because I just look at it as a challenge. I’m about to climb over every single barrier and just put females on a different map altogether. So I take it as it comes. Like, I don’t think in five years people will consider me a female rapper—I’ll be, like, an entertainer. But, as of right now, I get it. I started off in the underground hip-hop circuit, so I’m a female rapper right now. But it’s just the beginning.

One way female rappers have gotten attention is with sexually explicit lyrics and a sexy image. Is there pressure for you to skew your content that way, because of the idea that that’s what people wanna hear from female rappers?
I never feel pressure to say anything sexual. I think people have come to understand my personality now, and even when I do say something sexual, it’s almost funny. I’ve turned a lot of songs down if they’re too overtly sexual, because I don’t believe I have to do that. In the beginning, I think I did feel I had to do that—I’m not gonna lie. But, as of right now, I do not feel like, in order for me to get attention, I have to do anything sexual. The majority of my fans seem to be younger girls, [and] they’re cool with me making weird faces and putting a pink weave in. It’s more about the character that I’ve built and less about the sexuality now, I think.

The character you’ve built has been transitioning a bit since we first met you, with the different colored hairstyles, your new clothing style. Is that because it’s all now more accessible to you, or because you’ve got more people wanting to dress you?
Well, again, I think, in the beginning, I allowed myself to be told what I should look like, sound like, and now I’m at the point where I want my personality to always come across. If that means a blonde wig that day [or] a weird London accent on my record, that’s what I’m gonna do.

I feel like it’s my time to show who I really am. You guys can take it or leave it. I love kooky style. I love things that look like a photo shoot every day. I wanna play dress up. I want people to always wonder what I’m gonna look like. It’s really exciting. When people come out in this business, you don’t know how long you have to make a mark to be heard, to be seen. So with the time that I have, I want to make it exciting, and visual stimulation is very important to me.

When I see somebody, a part of me liking them is taking them completely in, from the hair, the outfit, and the lipstick, and all that. Just as a girl, I know how I look at other girls, and I think it’s a very fun aspect of hip-hop that sometimes we don’t pay attention to. I just wanna step it up a notch and be a little bit more creative with it. I think sometimes I push the envelope just to get a reaction, because when [people] stop talking, then there’s a problem. Whether they love it or hate it, that’s actually one of my stipulations now: It has to be an outfit that they’re either gonna love it or hate it. ’Cause if they say, “Eh, it’s okay,” then I failed.

Haters come out whenever someone succeeds. They’re gonna hate everything— the way you look or the way you sound—and they can get pretty nasty online. Do you pay attention to any of that?
No, I definitely don’t look at it. I learned that a long time ago, that if you wanna have any sanity, you cannot read anything being said about you on the Internet. That goes for all the up-and-coming artists, as well. You have to get out of wanting to know what people have to say about you. It’s something that I had to realize. The majority of people that leave comments on the Internet and do those things, they’re not living a successful life.

It’s some mean people with a whole bunch of time on their hands…
Right. So I think putting people down makes them feel better about themselves, so I don’t get mad. I don’t [think] people understand this: I love when they talk, whether they’re saying something good or bad. I’m constantly the topic of conversation, and that’s what I need right now. I don’t let it bother me. I’m very happy with where I am in my life, and I look at it like God has blessed me so much in the last 12 months, why would I let a person that hasn’t even seen the world get to me? They’re just confused admirers, that’s all. It’s interesting to me, the people that so-called don’t like me, they’re the ones that can tell you what I was wearing at every event, what I said in every interview. They’re in love with me. They’re not my haters—they love me. They’re just too ashamed and insecure to admit it. But it’s cool; they’ll get over it.

Wayne’s been around for your whole growth up until this point, and now that he’s in jail, you’re gonna have to put your solo album out without him there. Are you nervous about how his absence will affect you?
I’m not nervous, but I am disappointed. I almost feel like it shouldn’t happen like this. This is not the plan. Wayne should be [here], seeing everything come to fruition. I don’t think we’ll know until sometime in the future, but I think there’s just a bigger purpose for him being gone now around the time when me and Drake are kinda really doing the most work that we’ve ever done.

Nothing can replace him being here. He’s just so full of life and wisdom, and we take a lot from him, and we learn from him. I don’t think people see that [or] understand how much we really depend on Wayne for. But maybe in a weird twist of fate this happened for us to kinda step up to the plate and prove ourselves and prove that we deserve this.

Has all of this been exciting to you or tiring? Does it get a little boring?
One thing that my life is never is boring. I don’t even know the definition of that word anymore. Whether it’s a good moment or a bad one, there’s never a dull one. And I’m not used to it. I’m still excited to sign the autographs and take the pictures, and I don’t think those things will ever get old to me. The one thing that you’ll learn when you really start doing [this] is there’s a lot of work involved, and that’s why they call it the music business. It’s not something for the faint at heart—only the strongest survive. And, especially being a female, people try a lot of tactics with you, so you kinda always have to be seen as a strong person and a person that knows what you want. That’s the hardest thing—being able to stand my ground on things that I know is right for me, and just not allowing anybody to change me anymore. I’m loving every minute of it. But I do feel that a lot of things just pass me by before I can really even be in the moment and appreciate how big it is. I guess that comes with the territory. What can I say.

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