Born in the Caribbean, Nicki Minaj moved to New York as a 5-year-old and has overcome a difficult childhood to become a successful hip-hop artist. Her label-mate Lil Wayne calls her “an icon” who has “reached far beyond anything I would have imagined. Nicki will go down as one of the best to do it in the history of music.”

Early Life

Minaj was born Onika Tanya Maraj on December 8, 1982, in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago, and moved with her family to Queens, New York, when she was 5 years old. Minaj's father was a severe drug addict with a long history of violence. At one point, he set fire to the family's home in a failed attempt to kill Minaj's mother. Those early struggles, Minaj has said, helped fuel her drive to rise above the life her parents knew. "I've always had this female-empowerment thing in the back of my mind," she told Details magazine, "because I wanted my mother to be stronger, and she couldn't be. I thought, 'If I'm successful, I can change her life.'"

To reach that point, the young Minaj developed personas for herself that would allow her to reinvent herself. An early incarnation was "Cookie," then came "Harajuku Barbie" before finally settling on Nicki Minaj. "Fantasy was my reality," she has said. Minaj clearly had a knack for performance. At the age of 12, she authored her first rap, then went on to delve into acting at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art, the school that inspired the movie Fame. But her acting career didn’t take off, and she took up a range of steady jobs, including waitressing at Red Lobster, where she was fired for being rude to customers.

Early Career

Determined to make it in the music business, Minaj took on backup singing roles for local New York City rappers, including Full Force. Soon, she began writing her own material. She was eventually discovered by the Dirty Money CEO Fendi, who came across Minaj's MySpace page, loved what he heard, and signed her to his label.

That connection led Minaj to Lil Wayne, who collaborated with her on a series of mixtapes, the first of which, Playtime Is Over, was released in April 2007. This and subsequent mixtapes, including Sucka Free (2008) and Beam Me Up Scotty (2009), showcased Minaj's female swagger and out-front style. She signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money label in August, 2009, becoming its first ever female artist. She solidified her growing rep with appearances on the We Are Young Money compilation album (2009), also collaborating with Mariah Carey and Robin Thicke.

Debut Album: 'Pink Friday'

By early 2010, anticipation had built up around Minaj's debut album, which was scheduled for release that fall. In April of that year, she released her first single, "Massive Attack," followed by "Your Love." Two months later she won Best Hip Hop Female at the annual BET Awards. She dedicated the award to Lil Wayne. The Pink Friday album dropped that November, with eight singles released to promote it. It went triple platinum, and received generally positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly’s Brad Wete was reminded of “her labelmate Drake — fully aware of how amazing she is, but also how fragile.” Minaj displayed a range of alter-egos on her releases, including Onika, Nicki Lewinsky and Roman Zolanski.

'American Idol' Feud With Mariah Carey

In March 2012, Minaj made a guest appearance on the popular television competition American Idol. She told singer Jennifer Lopez, then a judge on the show, to "scoot over a little bit" to make room for her at the judges' table. Rumors then flew of a feud between Minaj and Lopez, which Minaj later dismissed. Later that year, however, Minaj apparently got her wish when she was announced as a judge on American Idol. It didn't take long before the fireworks began between her and fellow judge Mariah Carey. The pair seemed to take an instant dislike to each other and openly feuded during the show's early auditions.

Television viewers got to see the two square off once the show's 12th season began airing in early 2013. Minaj and Carey got into an argument during auditions in Charlotte, North Carolina, with Minaj storming off stage. Carey later claimed that Minaj threatened her with physical harm and decided to hire extra security as a result, according to the New York Daily News. Minaj has also been critical of the show, tweeting that American Idol "is NOT a singing competition."

'Roman Reloaded' and 'The Pinkprint'

Minaj reached a national audience with her 2012 Super Bowl appearance. She performed alongside Madonna in the game's popular halftime show. A short time later, Minaj released the album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. The record proved to be a smash hit, reaching the top of the pop, R&B and rap charts. The infectious dance song "Starships" was the first breakout single. "Pound the Alarm" soon followed, and as did "Va Va Voom." She went on to perform "Roman Holiday" at the Grammy Awards the same year.

Eight more singles were released from her next album, The Pinkprint, which came out on December 12, 2014. The album’s star-studded guest list included Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Ariana Grande and Drake. It went double platinum, and in 2016, she won the Best Female Hip Hop Artist award at the BET Awards for the seventh consecutive time.

Film Roles and Other Business Interests

Minaj had also been branching out into other areas. She provided the voice of mammoth Steffie in 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift and made her movie debut in 2014’s The Other Woman, opposite Cameron Diaz. She later received a Teen Choice Awards 2016 nomination for her role in Barbershop: The Next Cut. She has fronted a number of endorsement deals and advertising campaigns, including MAC Cosmetics, Adidas Originals and Pepsi, and has her own fragrance line. She is a shareholder in the Tidal streaming service. Her relationship with the rapper Meek Mill ended in early 2017.

More Hits and 'Queen'

Despite all her other projects, Minaj hasn’t lost her musical focus. She appeared on a slew of singles in 2017, and with the simultaneous release and successes of "No Frauds," "Regret in Your Tears" and "Changed It," she took over the record of most entries on the Billboard Hot 100 by a female artist, a mark previously held by Aretha Franklin.

The following April, Minaj dropped two new tracks, "Chun-Li" and "Barbie Tingz." Later that year she unveiled "Rich Sex," featuring Lil Wayne, and "Bed," with Ariana Grande, and joined controversial rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine on the track "FEFE." On August 8, the artist launched her Queen Radio show on Apple Music's Beats 1 station; two days later, her fourth studio album, Queen, debuted at No. 2.

In early 2019, Minaj kicked off The Nicki Wrld Tour in Frankfurt, Germany, with rapper Juice Wrld. Along with her many collaborations, the artist dropped her first solo single of the year, "Megatron," in late June.

In September, after the release of The Angry Birds Movie 2, in which she had a voice role, Minaj delivered the stunning tweet that she'd decided to retire to "have my family." Although the artist later promised her fans that there was more music to come, she took a step toward fulfilling her family desires by tying the knot with boyfriend Kenneth Petty in October.

After kicking off 2020 with the Meghan Trainor collaboration "Nice to Meet Ya," Minaj appeared as a guest judge on the season 12 premiere of RuPaul's Drag Race. She then joined Doja Cat for a remix of "Say So," which became Minaj's first song to reach the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100.

Personal Life

Minaj married Petty in October 2019. In July 2020, she announced that she's expecting. Minaj and Petty welcomed their first child, a son, on September 30, 2020.

Minaj previously dated rappers Meek Mill and Safaree Samuels.

Achievements

Minaj is the recipient of numerous accolades, including nine American Music Awards, twelve BET Awards, eight BET Hip Hop Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, eight MTV Video Music Awards, ten MTV Europe Music Awards, four People's Choice Awards, one Soul Train Music Award, and four Teen Choice Awards. Minaj has received a total of 10 Grammy Award nominations. She received her first Grammy nomination in 2010 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group ("My Chick Bad" with Ludacris). In 2012, Minaj received three nominations, including Best New Artist and Best Rap Album (Pink Friday). In 2014, she received her second nomination for Best Rap Album (The Pinkprint). She has won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Hip-Hop Video four times ("Super Bass", "Anaconda", "Chun-Li" and "Do We Have a Problem?") and has won the Best Female Video Award once ("Starships"). Minaj is the first woman to have appeared on the Forbes "Hip Hop Cash Kings" list since its inception in 2007, having made four consecutive appearances between 2011 and 2014.

In 2010, Minaj became the first female solo artist to have seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously, and the first woman to appear on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List since its inception in 2007. In 2011, Minaj was ranked sixth on the Rolling Stone master ranking of the "Kings of Hip Hop" which is based on record sales and social media metrics. She is the only rapper to win the BET Award for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist seven consecutive times. In 2013, Minaj became the most-charted female rapper on the Billboard Hot 100 at the time, with 44 entries, tying Mariah Carey as seventh among women of all genres.

Minaj has twenty-one top 10 singles on the chart, the most for any female rapper, with six of those being solo songs. In 2017, Minaj broke the record for most Hot 100 entries by any female artist, surpassing Aretha Franklin, and in 2018, she became the first female artist to accumulate 100 entries on the Hot 100. She held the mentioned record for most Hot 100 entries by a female artist until it was broken in December 2020 by singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. She is the female artist with the second-most Hot 100 entries, behind Swift. In 2019, Billboard Women in Music awarded her with the Game Changer Award.

In 2019, her collaboration with Karol G, named "Tusa", received two nominations at the Latin Grammys. The song became the longest-running number-one single on the Argentina Hot 100, having spent 25 weeks on the position. In 2020, Minaj become the second female rapper to chart at number one on the Hot 100 more than once with her 6ix9ine collaboration "Trollz". She also became the second female to debut atop the chart since Lauryn Hill in 1998. In the same year, she also was the most streamed female rapper on Spotify. In 2021, the music video for "Anaconda" became the first female rap solo song to reach one billion views on YouTube.

In total, Minaj has eight music videos with more than one billion views across all credits on YouTube, becoming the first female rapper to do so. She is only one of two female artists to have eight music videos reaching more than one billion views, tying with Rihanna . In 2016, she was listed on the Time 100 annual list of the most influential people in the world. She was also featured on one of the physical covers of the issue. Complex ranked her eighth on their list of best rappers of the 2010s, being the only female rapper on the list, and named her "Best Rapper Alive" of 2014.