Nicki Minaj Says Irv Gotti Inspired “Moment 4 Life” Track

Nicki Minaj has had her fair share of hit records in her young career. “Your Love,” “Check It Out,” “Super Bass,” “Fly” and “Starships” are just some examples.

However, one of Nicki’s biggest singles—“Moment 4 Life”—had the Young Money princess drawing inspiration from a familiar hip-hop figure: Irv Gotti.

“When I was writing my first album, Pink Friday, I had a conversation with one of my really good friends, his name is Irv Gotti, and we had this really interesting conversation where he told me, ‘Enjoy this moment, you’ll never get this moment ever again, you’ll never be the new girl on the scene ever again, and so I went into the studio,” Nicki recently told TheInsider.com. “I heard this amazing track, and right there in the moment I kind of wished I could freeze everything that was happening because it just felt so exciting, people were all of a sudden interested in me. As an underground artist, I wasn’t really used to that.

“I just started singing, ‘I wish that I could have this moment for life,’’ she added. “I went in the booth and started singing it. I never wrote it down. I just felt that’s what the track was saying.”

Good thinking. Drawing upon Irv’s advice as inspiration, Nicki, with the help of Young Money labelmate, Drake, was able to turn “Moment 4 Life” into a platinum single. In fact, it was one of seven singles that she had simultaneously on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart.

In addition to an industry vet, like Irv, Nicki also told TheInsider that she drew huge inspiration from Beyoncé’s Pepsi campaign in following with her own campaign with the soft drink.

“Out of the people that have done something with Pepsi, I think I was probably the most influenced by the Beyoncé commercial because I felt like this is a young Black girl, early on in her career and she’s doing something so iconic and I never thought in a billion years that Pepsi would reach out to someone like me,” she added.

Nicki is currently on tour in Japan. On June 3, she’s set to headline Hot 97’s 2012 Summer Jam live from the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.—Jakinder Singh