‘It’s kind of like a glimpse back to what a real rap show is,’ creative director Laurieann Gibson tells MTV News. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Vanessa White Wolf Nicki Minaj Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Nicki Minaj is currently taking her Pink Friday Tour around the world before circling back Stateside in July . Given Nicki’s love for all things over-the-top, it’s no surprise that her first-ever headlining gig is all about going big or going home. The rapper’s right-hand lady, creative director and choreographer Laurieann Gibson , told MTV News that when they sat down to plot the trek, “There was a challenge to get through a 70-minute show” after Nicki had spent her last few tours opening for the likes of Lil Wayne and Britney Spears, but what they cooked up is something Gibson said she is “really, really proud of.” “I just put Nicki Minaj on the road, actually, and her tour is super special to me and doing really well,” Gibson told MTV News about working with the rapper again after their eye-popping Grammy performance back in February. “Nicki Minaj was so much fun for me, and it was like a real breath of fresh air, and musically, to get back to the rap game, to see a female MC dominate the pop charts, this, historically, for me, I feel a bit of responsibility,” she added. “When I did ‘The Rain,’ that video for Missy [Elliott], and just with Puff and the evolution of Bad Boy Records and my responsibility there and the pressure to maintain dominant rappers [on major award shows] and not let them lose street credibility, the years of all that torture … and all of those moments. When I got back to Nicki, I was so happy to be in that soulful music again, in that fight, in the idea that rap is not dead and that somebody like her can be many things in many genres and not be limited. “I love [when] I heard Roman Reloaded. I loved her delivery. I love the way she flows,” she added. “So the Pink Friday Tour is really good and it’s kind of like a glimpse back to what a real rap show is. It’s intimate but big at the same time.” Will you check out Nicki on tour? Let us know in the comments! Related Artists Nicki Minaj
‘I had 11 million followers and I hope they will wait for me,’ Minaj says, hinting at a return to the site. By Nadeska Alexis Nicki Minaj in her video for “Beez In The Trap” Photo: UMG As of Friday afternoon (April 20), Nicki Minaj has been absent from Twitter for five days, keeping the Barbz on a sharp lookout for her return. Minaj temporarily deleted the account in a fit of frustration on Sunday, but during her current press run in the U.K., she admits that she’s still pondering if or when she will get back on the social media site. In an interview with Graham Norton, Nicki explained that one of the many personalities in her head — we’re assuming it wasn’t Roman this time — told her to quit Twitter. “A voice in my head told me to delete my Twitter and that’s what I did,” she said, adding, “I had 11 million followers and I hope they will wait for me.” Norton specifically asked when she planned to get back on her timeline, but she wouldn’t confirm anything, telling him, “I don’t know yet, I’m thinking about it. I miss my Barbz, please bear with me.” Nicki disappeared from Twitter over the weekend after getting into a spat with one of her fan sites, NickiDaily , which she took issue with for posting leaked music from her Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded album. “Like seriously, it’s but so much a person can take. Good f—ing bye,” she wrote before signing off indefinitely. The leak was Nicki’s breaking point, but it’s very possible that she was also getting fed up with some of the feedback she’s been receiving since she dropped Roman Reloaded. For now, Barbz shouldn’t be too worried about Nicki being permanently absent from Twitter. She will be able to reactivate her account even after several weeks of inactivity, and thanks to her verified status, no one will be allowed to inherit her @NickiMinaj handle without the permission of Twitter employees. Do you think Nicki should reactivate her Twitter account? Tell us in the comments! Related Videos The Evolution Of Nicki Minaj Related Artists Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj’s “Leather Fit” [Video] Understandably Nicki Minaj looked a little wide-eyed as photographers started snapping away around her as she left her London hotel… But wait a second, what is she wearing!? Turn it to peep…
Her Barbz sure hope so, but Nicki bid them ‘good f—ing bye’ on Sunday. By Kara Klenk Nicki Minaj Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/ WireImage On Sunday, more than 11 million Barbz had their lifeline to Nicki Minaj abruptly severed when the femcee shut down her Twitter account . Tensions initially escalated over Minaj’s accusation that a fan site had leaked some of her tracks and culminated in the rapper’s deactivation of her account. This move came as a shock to many of her fans, as Minaj was one of the most followed Twitter users in the world (she had more followers than Oprah!) and constantly filled her timeline with personalized responses to individual fans. It seems that maintaining such an open dialogue with her fans may have backfired as she formulated her last frustrated tweets including, “Like seriously, its but so much a person can take. Good f—ing bye.” While having a Twitter following in the millions certainly comes with perks, the negative comments undoubtedly wear on stars. Chris Brown has deleted his account and his tweets on more than one occasion, after getting fed up with comments from other users about his personal life. Brown and Minaj aren’t alone: John Mayer , Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato have all been Twitter quitters at one point too. Celebs ditch Twitter for a variety of reasons — after a scandal, over backlash from ill-thought-out comments, or sometimes just to focus on their career and not get caught up in the constant flow of communication the social-networking site thrives on. But it seems just as difficult to stay away. Brown, Lovato and Cyrus have all since returned to the site, while Mayer currently has a working account with zero tweets logged. But how long does Minaj have to decide about coming back to her millions of Barbz? According to a source at Twitter, after a period of inactivity (several months of not logging in), a deactivated handle can be reassigned to another user. However, before anyone thinks they can snap up the @nickiminaj handle in a few months, with a verified celebrity account, Twitter works with the user before any action is taken. So whether Minaj ever returns, no one should count on grabbing that user name anytime soon. Plus, if she does have a change of heart, her following will remain intact, so the Barbz would be the first to know about a comeback. Are you hoping Nicki comes back to Twitter? Let us know in the comments! Related Videos The Evolution Of Nicki Minaj Related Artists Nicki Minaj
‘I think she’s taken it to the next level,’ says Sirius/XM’s Reggie Hawkins. By Gil Kaufman Nicki Minaj Photo: Getty Images It’s one of the trickiest moves in music and even if it’s done right it only goes in one direction. With her just-released second album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded , Nicki Minaj has served notice that she aims to be that rarest of MCs: one that can appeal to the pop crowd and hard-core hip-hop heads at the same time. It’s virtually impossible (so far) to start out pop and then work up enough cred to get over with rap fans. But like Missy Elliott, Nelly, Eminem and Diddy before her, Minaj is hoping that she can stay relevant to the heads who fell in love with her three years ago on a series of buzzy mixtapes and still become the next Katy Perry. “She can rap, flat out, she has proven it with some of best rappers in game and she will never lose that ability and because of that she will always remain a favorite in hip-hop,” said XXL magazine executive editor Jayson Rodriguez. “It’s the pop crowd that can be fickle … She has the personality, the skill, the songs and charisma to inhabit that pop sphere. As long as she has skill level, there’s no reason she can’t top both charts.” Thanks to a string of knock-out features on hits by everyone from label boss Lil Wayne to DJ Khaled, Kanye West and Ludacris, Minaj, 29, has plenty of rap bona fides. But she’s also reached for the pop brass ring by performing at the Super Bowl with Madonna, the Grammys and on “American Idol,” indulging in the kind of outrageous fashion sense that makes headlines and earns cover stories from the mainstream press. She also launched the new album with a single in “Starships” that’s like tooth-rotting candy to pop radio, and a far cry from the gritty mixtape songs that launched her career back in the day. That might explain why Roman is almost pointedly split in two, with the first half presenting her rap side courtesy of a string of no-nonsense rhymes produced by the likes of Hitboy and Blackout, with features by Cam’ron, Weezy, Rick Ross and, on the hard-hitting potential break-out rap single “Beez in the Trap” , 2 Chainz. Those songs are followed by a string of tunes on the second half produced by Lady Gaga collaborator RedOne, pop trackmaster Dr. Luke and J.R. Rotem. For the most part, mainstream critics have not been kind about the cross-over dribble move, which has also left some fans with divided loyalties . “I honestly think that she saw the blueprint Kanye West made with his last album [ My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy ], and the way music is going where an artist can have a record playing on four different platforms [at satellite radio] and she personified it and maximized it,” said Reggie Hawkins, program director for Sirius/XM’s Hip Hop Nation. “She [isn’t a rapper that] does pop records that suck. She does great pop records and songs like ‘Pound the Alarm’ are going to be played in clubs from here to Brazil. I think she’s taken it to the next level.” Minaj recently told the Los Angeles Times that she took the disappointment of her rap fans hard when they complained about lightweight tunes like “Your Love” and “Moment 4 Life” from her best-selling debut, Pink Friday . “I felt a lot of pressure to be inspirational and responsible [on that album],” Minaj said. “I like all kinds of music; when I was working at Red Lobster the soundtrack of my life there was Avril Lavigne. Hip-hop fans are my core, and I can never not be hip-hop. But why not showcase all sides of who you are?” Which is why, she said, she wanted Reloaded to indulge all of her many personalities, from the frantic verses of “Roman Holiday” to the mixtape-like “Stupid Hoe” and the Eminem feature “Roman’s Revenge.” The way Hawkins reads it, Nicki doesn’t seem to really care if hip-hop gives her the cold shoulder. “She’s seen the light internationally and seen that there’s a bigger world than just Queens, New York, or Bankhead, Atlanta,” he said. “She’s grown and when I sat down with her [I got the sense] that she doesn’t care. She’s going to Will Smith the game … her next step is movies. It’s not about hip-hop critics who want to box her in as a hip-hop artist. It’s about her core fans, her Twitter followers and social media people, her Barbz. If they give her backlash it’s a problem.” And when Nicki appeared on Sirius radio’s “Sway in the Morning” on Shade 45 this week, she reacted to that potential backlash by explaining that she has to keep evolving. “You just gotta realize that I’m never gonna be one-dimensional,” she said. “Even my core fans I think, at times, thought I was one-dimensional when I was doing mixtapes. However, even on the mixtapes, I was singing and I did a song called ‘Can Anybody Hear Me’ on one of my mixtapes where I was singing and talking about being a female rapper and trying to get signed.” Rodriguez said he totally understands Nicki’s desire to grow artistically and predicted that the grumbling from the rap community would settle down eventually once she puts out some hot remixes. “The thing with a half-and-half record is that you’ll have detractors because it’s never fully one thing or the other,” he said, pointing to label mate Drake as someone who has managed to keep both sides of his audience happy with a more cohesive pair of albums that smoothly mix his pop and rap leanings. “As opposed to Missy or Diddy, who started out glossy and very pop hued … Nicki came from the DVD/mixtape scene. Her base is hip-hop, which launched her to reach those pop heights and now they’re looking at it like, ‘wham, bam, thank you ma’m.'” Regardless of the grumbling, she’s on track to show them all when Roman likely debuts at #1 on the Billboard charts next week. What do you think of Roman Reloaded? Tell us on our Facebook page! To celebrate the release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, we will be examining the “Evolution of Nicki Minaj” throughout the week. Check MTV News every day to see how the Southside Jamaica, Queens, Barbie went from a promising mixtape standout to rap’s reigning queen. Related Videos The Evolution Of Nicki Minaj Related Artists Nicki Minaj
Some Barbz and Kenz have praised the album, but others are disappointed. By Kara Klenk Nicki Minaj Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, the sophomore effort from one of MTV’s Hottest MCs, Nicki Minaj , dropped Tuesday (April 3), leaving critics and fans divided. Critics have almost unanimously panned it , but all maintain that Minaj is an enormous talent whose album shifted focus away from her clear strength, rapping, to make way for more generic pop and dance tunes. The Barbz and Kenz make up one of the most fiercely loyal fanbases around, so Minaj isn’t losing love from them. Still, many are torn about the album. Some have proclaimed their love for the album, calling it “beyond great” and “fabulous.” @Craggleprice tweeted, “The album is amazing!! it’s got Rap, Pop, Dance and Ballads! best album! Drake and Lil Wayne Collabs r amazing! it all is!” Standout tracks among fans seem to be “Beautiful Sinner,” “Va Va Voom,” “Come on a Cone” and “Beez in the Trap.” Others stand by Minaj as an artist but are not into her latest work. @Rudy_Nelson wrote, “It’s horrible! and I’m a fan!” Minaj is also being compared to her pop contemporaries: As @Crucial416 commented, “It’s a great Rihanna album. Terrible nicki album.” What do YOU think of Roman Reloaded? Tell us on Facebook! While critics also expressed disappointment that Minaj split the album down the middle with rap on one side and dance/pop on the other, one MTV.com reader came to her defense. Zachary wrote, “Critics need to stop riding her and give up on trying to ‘box [Nicki] in’ (as she said in ‘Fly’) as JUST a female rapper. She’s expanded into being so much more. Nearly every track on her debut featured her singing and also featured heavy synth productions. ‘Blazin’ anyone? ‘Last Chance’? ‘Dear Old Nicki’? ‘Save Me’? SHE’S BEEN SINGING SINCE THE BEGINNING!!! Her bubblegum Barbie side is what made her famous on ‘Super Bass,’ which combined both strong rap and vocals; why are they telling lies?” Some fans seem to want Minaj to go back even further than her smash hit “Pink Friday.” @SistahSar_casm tweeted, “Not feeling it either smh. … I miss mixtape Nicki.” While @GagaIsMyJudas suggested critics give it some time — writing, “It’s awesome, if they listened to it more they’d love it. I didn’t like it at first but it grew on me” — it seems most of Minaj’s fans don’t heed them. @MsSmartBarbie tweeted, “Frankly I could care less what they think. This was for the fans not for the critics.” Related Videos The Evolution Of Nicki Minaj Related Photos Nicki Minaj’s Red-Carpet Looks Related Artists Nicki Minaj
‘Little girls can aspire to be anything and that’s all I want people to see,’ Minaj tells MTV News. By Rob Markman Nicki Minaj Photo: MTV News If Nicki Minaj ever decided to walk away from music, maybe she should consider a second career as a scientist of some sort. Hardly a stranger to experimentation, rap’s reigning queen seems to stand as an evolving amalgamation of her quirky fantasy-based creations. Nicki throws the different paints of her colorful imagination up against the wall just to see what sticks, as evidenced on the album cover to her sophomore LP, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded . Since she first jumped onto the scene, Nicki has encouraged her dedicated fanbase to live out their wildest dreams. MTV News caught up with the Young Money superstar right after she performed to open the 2012 NBA All-Star Game in February. We asked her what it meant to be ranked in the top five of our annual Hottest MCs in the Game list . “If there’s one thing I want people to take away from it, it’s just that little girls can aspire to be anything, and that’s all I want people to see,” Nicki said between deep breaths, still winded from her energetic All-Star performance. “Whether you follow Nicki Minaj’s blueprint or not, just don’t be afraid to experiment and don’t allow people to knock your hustle just ’cause it ain’t something that you’re used to seeing.” From her theatrical flow to her outlandish fashion sense, Nicki Minaj has definitely given fans things that they’ve never seen before. Who can forget when she gave both Jay-Z and Kanye West a lyrical run for their rap money on 2010’s “Monster,” or Nicki’s anime-inspired VMA outfit ? In theory, Nicki’s rap success should open the doors for more female MCs to be signed and fill hip-hop’s gaping feminine void. Since the Harajuku Barbie’s rise to prominence, women rappers like Kreayshawn, Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks have all made notable strides. “That’s what I like,” Nicki said about her number-four placement on the Hottest MCs list. “I like that I’m there because it gives little girls in Southside Jamaica, Queens, or South Africa or Brazil a moment to say, ‘Oh wait, I can be a female rapper!’ Yes, you really can.” To celebrate the April 3 release of Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, we will be examining the “Evolution of Nicki Minaj” throughout the week. Check MTV News every day to see how the Southside Jamaica, Queens, Barbie went from a promising mixtape standout to rap’s reigning queen. Related Videos The Evolution Of Nicki Minaj Related Photos Nicki Minaj’s Red-Carpet Looks
‘It’s gonna be important for just hip-hop culture and pop culture,’ Minaj tells MTV News. By Rob Markman Nicki Minaj Photo: MTV News Playtime is over and on her latest single, “Roman Reloaded,” Nicki Minaj returned to the rapid-fire rhyming that first got her noticed on hip-hop’s mixtape circuit. The Rico Beats-produced banger features pounding drums, well-timed gunshot effects and plenty of tough talk from Nicki and her Young Money boss Lil Wayne . It’s a far cry from last year’s “Super Bass” and the Harajuku Barbie’s RedOne-produced pop-affair “Starships.” “That’s just a preview of what’s to come on the album. I know what people need right now,” Nicki told MTV News in her dressing room at the Amway Center after her NBA All-Star Game performance on Sunday. Anticipation is building for Nick’s sophomore LP, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, and with a little more than a month left before it is released, many are still unsure which direction the Young Money star will take. Will the album sound more like the title track or “Starships”? Of course, there is always a middle ground. “April 3 is gonna be a doozy. It’s gonna be crazy,” Nicki said of her album release date. “It’s gonna be important for just hip-hop culture and pop culture. It’s gonna be very big.” On Thursday (March 1), Nicki unveiled her Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded album cover via Twitter . The colorful album art shows the reigning rap queen with blond hair and a mix of pink, purple and green paint covering her face. What are you expecting from Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded ? Tell us in the comments! Related Artists Nicki Minaj
Young Money queen Nicki Minaj is gearing up for the release of her anticipated sophomore album, Roman Reloaded, and in preparation she just dropped the title track featuring her YMCMB boss, Lil Wayne . Produced by Rico Beats , Nicki drops her auto-tuned pop vocals for her brash rhyme style. She even throws a few shots at Lil Kim, female rappers and talks about her Grammy performance, which was widely criticized. Check out “Roman Reloaded” below. Is this the Nicki Minaj you want to hear? Leave your review in the comments. RELATED: Nicki Minaj Before She Was Famous [VIDEO] Sorry Barbz! Nicki Minaj’s “Stupid Hoe” Video Banned From BET! [VIDEO] Lil Wayne Disses Watch The Throne [VIDEO] Lil Kim Responds To Nicki Minaj: “You Must Be The Stupid Hoe” [VIDEO]
