There's no missing the rapper Nicki Minaj, what with her crazy outfits, flurry of Grammy nominations and collaborations with everyone from Madonna and Britney Spears to Kanye West and Rihanna.
BY Nisha Lilia Diu | 12 February 2012
Photo: GETTY There are an awful lot of people present at my 'one-on-one' interview with Nicki Minaj: publicists, make-up artists and several hangers-on slouching nonchalantly about the penthouse suite.
As if in silent accord, they have arranged themselves in a circle at the centre of which sits the singer herself, a tiny figure made even smaller by the dizzying view of New York behind her. We're on the 44th floor of a smart hotel, high enough to see the city's strict grid layout and the Brooklyn Bridge dissolving into the mist on this hazy winter's morning.
Minaj is as dainty and cartoon-curvy as Marilyn Monroe, but she exudes an air of intense restlessness, like a caged tigress. Stepping into the circle feels a little like entering a gladiatorial arena. She's wearing a leopard-print wig I recognise from the video she filmed with Rihanna for Fly, one of seven Nicki Minaj singles to have graced the Billboard Hot 100 in America simultaneously last year (a record for any artist).
Or at least I thought I recognised it. 'This one has pink dots in it,' she points out in a New York accent so thick every word is stretched into half a dozen syllables. 'I unveiled it strictly for Viva Glam.'
This month Minaj, 29, and the singer Ricky Martin take over from Lady Gaga as spokespeople for Viva Glam, the fundraising arm of the cosmetics company Mac. Gaga raised $55 million (£35 million) for the fund through sales of Viva Glam products (100% of the sale price goes to programmes such as HIV testing for Caribbean farm workers or sex-education classes in South African schools). At the end of 2010 Mac ran a small promotion with the then little-known Nicki Minaj to coincide with the release of her debut album, 'Pink Friday'.
'We knew she loved our Pink Nouveau lipstick so we put a limited edition version on sale on four Fridays - four "pink Fridays" - just before the album came out,' says John Demsey, president of Mac's parent company, Estée Lauder. 'Two and a half thousand lipsticks forecasted, 30,000 sold. I thought, "Wow."'
At the time Minaj was riding high after the verse she sang in Kanye West's hit single Monster became the surprise standout on a track crammed with megastar rappers, including Jay-Z. With its furious energy, whistle-clean, machine-gun enunciation and pantomime voices it catapulted her into the hip-hop A-list.
The release of the R'n'B-influenced 'Pink Friday' and the hit singles it spawned - Your Love, Super Bass, Right Thru Me - confirmed her as the first female rapper since Missy Elliott convincingly to cross into the mainstream. In Moment 4 Life, a typically elaborate, fairytale-themed Minaj video (also featuring the Canadian rapper Drake), she crowns herself 'King Nicki'. Why not Queen?
'Because like I say in [my track] Roman's Revenge I am not Jasmine, I am Aladdin. Because I remember always being around boys that rap and I always had to be the girl singing the hook.
'I always had to be the sidekick. King is a way of saying, "There's no one on top of me."'
Minaj was selling mixtapes out of her car in her native Queens, New York, when she was spotted and signed by the Grammy Award-winning rapper Lil' Wayne. She went on tour with him last year and picked up so much buzz that Britney Spears selected her as the support act for her Femme Fatale tour. She has also collaborated on Madonna's latest single, Give me all your luvin', and performed live with her at the Super Bowl this month.
Now she has four Grammy nominations of her own, eight and a half million Twitter followers and the honour of being named 2011's highest-earning woman in hip-hop by Forbes magazine. In her videos and on stage, Minaj's look is extravagantly artificial. Her face is obscured by make-up, coloured contact lenses and false eyelashes, with padded body suits and wildly improbable wigs heightening the effect.
It's a shock to find that, in person, she is exquisitely beautiful. Her face is small and delicate with velvety skin and a siren's smile. She is dressed in a body-hugging peach broderie-anglaise dress and jewelled Louis Vuitton shoes. 'This is actually very ladylike for me,' she says, crossing her legs, and, aside from the wig and a sweep of hot-pink eyeshadow, it is. Her flamboyant style was a reaction against the surprisingly conformist world of hip-hop.
'When I started getting serious about rap, the people closest to me were like, "You should dress this way, you should speak that way, you should rap this way." I just started feeling super caged in.'
It seemed the only look for women in hip-hop was sexy. 'I thought you had to do that. But it's boring. The typical sexy.' She rolls her eyes. 'I mean, girls wanna be sexy but I also think you have other sides of yourself.
'Right before my album came out I felt like I had been hiding my personality - my comedic side. I had to ask myself, "Why am I only showing one facet of who I am?"'
She didn't hold back at New York Fashion Week last autumn, where she attended several shows in ever-more-outrageous get-ups. At Carolina Herrera's she was seated beside Anna Wintour (Minaj in multicoloured pompoms and lime-green leggings, Wintour in nude sandals and a knee-length dress), providing one of the more incongruous images of the week.
'She was so sweet!' Minaj cries about the famously icy editor-in-chief of American Vogue. Of Lil' Wayne, a man with FEAR GOD tattooed on his eyelids and $150,000 of diamonds hammered into his teeth, she says, hugging herself, 'If I could pick him up and hold him in my arms and take him with me wherever I go, I would. I just wanna keep him safe from harm.'
But Minaj is not a woman who is easily intimidated. Onika Tanya Maraj, as her parents know her, was born in Trinidad and moved to Queens at the age of five. The middle of three children and her parents' only daughter, she loved singing in church. Home was not so happy. In a 2010 MTV documentary she spoke of her father's battle with drugs and how he once burned their house down. 'We all hated him,' she tells me.
Throughout it all, her mother 'took us to church - a lot. She was holding down jobs when he wasn't working. She moved us around a lot to get away from him whenever he would start acting crazy, when he'd go on a binge or whatever.' Her parents are still together and she says she has 'a great relationship' with her father now. But she told an interviewer last year that his behaviour had made her 'evil to men'. Is that true?
'You know, when you see your mother going through that you think, "I'll never do that when I get older." I always put my foot down with men - in business and in personal relationships - and I let them know, "I'm not going to submit to you."'
When it comes to romance, she says, 'I love fire. I don't think I could ever have a walk-in-the-park type of relationship. I'm just a lunatic - that's obvious,' she deadpans. 'But if you wanna make me happy, be a comedian, be intelligent and give me great conversation. If you can get those and still be someone I'm physically attracted to, you're halfway there.' Only halfway? 'Right, only halfway!'
There's been gossip that she and Drake, with whom she has collaborated a lot, might be an item. 'No,' she says, smiling. 'I love him, but it's not romantic at all.' Is there anyone in her life right now? 'No. I hate boys.' She glances to the right where her assistant (and another rumoured boyfriend), Safaree Samuels, sits at the breakfast bar with his head, rather oddly, stuffed in a duffel bag. 'I hate men. They don't deserve romance from me.' Minaj sighs dramatically. An awkward moment passes. Then Minaj laughs and everyone relaxes again.
Until I go and spoil it by bringing up Lil' Kim. Many have suggested that the older rapper, with her wigs, latex catsuits and brashly colourful make-up, has been an influence on Minaj, but Minaj has always bristled at the comparisons and Kim takes offence at this perceived 'disrespect'. The feud between the two is vicious. In Roman's Revenge, in which she raps alongside Eminem, Minaj addresses someone called 'lil' brag a lot', who she dismisses as a 'has-been. Yeah, I said it: has-been.' For her part, Kim released a single called Black Friday in which she spits fire about 'a Kim clone clown' warning her, 'You'll be gone by your 14th minute of fame.'
Tell me about Lil' Kim, I begin. No sooner are the words out of my mouth than the smile drops off Minaj's face. She holds up her palm in a 'stop' motion. 'Please don't. Please don't.' Can we talk about style? Was Kim an inspiration to her? 'Uh, uh.' She shakes her head. 'Please don't. Because I'll have to end the interview.'
Minaj's second album, 'Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded', is due out in April. Roman is Roman Zolanski, the most foul-mouthed and aggressive of her many musical personas. (There's also Nicki Teresa, 'the healer to my fans', and Harajuku Barbie, who is 'cute and innocent'.)
The first single released from the record was Roman in Moscow, a swaggering, explosive return to the ballsy vulgarity and inventive rhythm plays of her Monster verse. The second, Stupid Hoe, has divided opinion. Minaj tells me how important it is to bring 'female empowerment' to her fans. 'I want to represent strength, loving yourself, being proud of yourself, being ambitious.'
Yet the frenetic, discordant Stupid Hoe comes across as oddly misogynistic. In the video Minaj appears to mock a host of female musicians, with parodies of Shakira's She Wolf video and Lady Gaga's Bad Romance among countless others. In its first five days online it was watched 11 million times and drew hundreds of thousands of baffled comments. She certainly knows how to get people talking.
Tonight, Minaj will be performing at the Grammys (and almost certainly taking home an award or two) but right now she has her uncle on her mind. He died of an Aids-related illness when Minaj was 13 and is the reason she wanted to work with Mac. 'He was a police officer. He didn't fit the stereotype and that was very eye-opening for me.' Later this year Minaj will tackle climate change (sort of) with a voice role in Ice Age: Continental Drift. She also hopes to set up a mentoring club for inner-city children.
'I always had high expectations of what I wanted from life,' she says without a trace of apology.
All hail King Nicki.
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