The return! Nicki Minaj's social media resurgence is here and she's back on the airwaves with two new tracks today. But she also just dropped a few nuggets about what's really good with her & Cardi B.'s "beef." Chick even shed a tear.
We've got everything she revealed inside...
If you've missed the self proclaimed queen of rap, today is your lucky day. She gave her first interview - and an extremely revealing one - in months over at Beats 1 Radio. It's Young Money's home away from home, so it's only right.
Aside from explaining why she took a long hiatus from social media, the music scene and any appearances, she got real about what the deal is between her and certified rising star Cardi B. The rumors didn't simply come from media pitting two female rappers against each other. The rumor of a rift between the two holds some water, according to Nicki herself.
The "Chun Li" rapper dished to Zane Lowe moments ago saying she applauds Cardi B. and all of the new female rappers doing their thing.
"Cardi did exactly what she was supposed to do," Nicki remarked before saying Cardi took certain opportunities and ran with them.
We knew something was up when Nicki followed that up saying she wanted to shout out the female rappers who have shown her genuine love. And she emphasized genuine. Cardi wasn't on the list.
Nicki circled back and gave some real talk about her only issue with Cardi. She said it hurt her feelings when the "Bartier Cardi" rapper did her first interview after "Motorsport" dropped, and she was acting big mad about Nicki’s verse, questioning why she changed her lyrics after Cardi was added. Nicki says instead, she should have thanked her and been gracious about even doing a record at that time with someone of Nicki's stature. Just like she did herself when she was on a Trina track early in her career.
The Pinkprint rapper went into emotional detail about feeling ambushed by folks involved in that "Motorsport" track. And Quavo - Cardi's fiance Offset's Migos group member - is to blame.
Nicki says Quavo should have backed her up about her original explanation of how the song came about. When Quavo originally played the song for her, only he was on it. She told him it was a hit and wanted to hop on. When Quavo later told her all the Migos wanted on too, she insisted she still wanted to do the record. That's when ish got murky.
"Quavo asked me if he could put Cardi on the track afterwards, and I said yeah, sure," Nicki recalled.
When the story hit the media and people thought she was lying and shading Cardi, Nicki asked Quavo to come out and back her up. Nicki's voice quivered a little while revealing his hurtful response:
"I still have his texts. He said 'I would go on Twitter and back you up if you were my girl, LOL,” and that hurt. I thought of him as my baby. I think of all of them as my babies.
[Quavo] said 'I’m not going to go on Twitter and address that sh*t. If i do an interview, then I’ll address it.' It hurt my feelings to see people sit by and watch me be slaughtered and not say anything. They thought it was entertaining to watch Nicki look like the bad guy."
Nicki says Cardi’s interview on Beats 1 last week is when she finally felt the genuine love from the "Bodak Yellow" rapper.
"I never felt that from her until then. There’s so many other girls who wished they could have been on a song with Nicki Minaj. Not being cocky. Then the first thing out of your mouth when somebody asked you about a Nicki feature — you go off about me changing my verse? It’s because of the Nicki-hate parade that made her feel comfortable."
We feel her on that. You can win without coming for those before you and simply paying them the respect they deserve.
She should exchange stories with Lil Kim & Mariah. We're sure they can relate.
Either way, good to have you back, Onika!
Photos: Instagram