Nicki Minaj — Biography
Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, performing under the stage name Nicki Minaj, is a rapper, singer, and songwriter born in Trinidad who now works primarily in the United States. Widely recognized as the "Queen of Rap" and among the most significant rappers in history, she is celebrated for her distinctive rap delivery, clever wordplay, stylistic range across genres, and various character personas. She has been instrumental in reviving female rap's presence in mainstream music since the 2010s. Operating from New York City, Minaj launched her professional rap career in the early 2000s and achieved initial success through three mixtapes released between 2007 and 2009. Her first studio album, Pink Friday, debuted in 2010 atop the US Billboard 200 and set a record for female rap album sales in a single week during the twenty-first century, featuring the blockbuster track "Super Bass". Her second album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded released in 2012, showcased dance-pop influences and topped the US charts, producing the hit "Starships" that reached the top five. With The Pinkprint in 2014 and Queen in 2018, Minaj returned to hip hop, delivering popular tracks including "Anaconda" and "Chun-Li". In 2020, Minaj secured her first pair of Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers through collaborations with "Say So" and "Trollz", with the former marking the first female rap duet to lead the chart. Her debut solo number-one track arrived in 2022 with "Super Freaky Girl", which opened her fifth album, Pink Friday 2, released in 2023. That album premiered at the top of the US charts, establishing Minaj as the female rapper holding the most US number-one albums overall. The accompanying tour ranks fourth among rapper tours and first among female rapper tours in revenue generated. Minaj counts among music's top sellers and stands as the highest-selling female rapper, having moved over 100 million units. She holds three RIAA diamond certifications and became the first female rapper with multiple solo diamond-certified songs in 2024. Among RIAA's most-certified digital single performers, she has accumulated 54.5 million certified units. Publications Billboard and Vibe both ranked Minaj as history's greatest female rapper in 2023. Her awards include a Brit Award, five Billboard Music Awards, nine American Music Awards, eight MTV Video Music Awards with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award among them, eleven BET Awards, one Soul Train Music Award, and three Guinness World Records. Time included her in its 2016 list of the world's 100
