Wikipedia (en)
Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj ( NIK-ee min-AHZH), is a Trinidadian rapper, singer, and songwriter based in the United States. Regarded as the "Queen of Rap" and one of the most influential rappers of all time, she is noted for her dynamic rap flow, witty lyrics, musical versatility, and alter egos, and is credited as a driving force in the mainstream resurgence of female rap since the 2010s. Minaj began rapping professionally in the early 2000s and gained recognition with her three mixtapes between 2007 and 2009.
Minaj's debut studio album, Pink Friday (2010), topped the US Billboard 200 with the largest female rap album sales week of the 21st century, spawning the global hit single "Super Bass". Minaj explored dance-pop on her second US number-one album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (2012), which produced the top-five single, "Starships". She returned to her hip-hop roots with The Pinkprint (2014) and Queen (2018), which yielded the hit singles "Anaconda" and "Chun-Li". Minaj achieved her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles with the 2020 duets "Say So" and "Trollz"; the former was the first female rap collaboration to top the chart. "Super Freaky Girl", the lead single from her fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2 (2023), became her first solo US number-one. The album became her third number-one in the US, giving Minaj the most US number-one albums (three) of any female rapper. Its concert tour became the highest-grossing by a female rapper.
Minaj is one of the world's best-selling music artists and the best-selling female rapper, with over 100 million records sold. She has three diamond-certified songs by the RIAA and in 2024 became the first female rapper with multiple diamond-certified solo songs. She is among the RIAA's 50 highest-certified digital singles artists with 54.5 million certified units. In 2023, Billboard and Vibe ranked Minaj as the greatest female rapper of all time. Her various accolades include a Brit Award, five Billboard Music Awards, nine American Music Awards, eight MTV Video Music Awards (including the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award), 11 BET Awards, a Soul Train Music Award, and three Guinness World Records. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2016, and she was honored with the Billboard Women in Music Game Changer Award in 2019.
Minaj founded the record label imprint Heavy On It in 2023. Outside of music, her other endeavors include a fragrance line, a press on nails line, a Loci sneakers collection, and the radio show Queen Radio (2018–2023). She has also voice acted in the animated films Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) and The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), and acted in the comedy films The Other Woman (2014) and Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016). On television, she served as a judge on the twelfth season of American Idol (2013). Her outspoken views have received significant media attention.
