Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj

By Ines Mendoza

When we, as a species, look back on the 2010's what will we make of our style icons? Gone are the tight jeans and tees of the indie rockstars of the 2000s, and in their place a stream of outrageous outfits that even Mardi Gras participants would turn their nose up at.

The biggest culprit is, of course, Lady Gaga, but not too far behind her is Nicki Minaj.

Born Onika Tanya Maraj in December of 1982, "Nicki Minaj" is a Trinidadian-born American musician born in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago. It wasn't until she was 5 years old that she moved to The Big Apple in the borough of Queens, it was within this cultural melting pot she grew up and her personality began to form.

She attended Elizabeth Blackwell Middle School where a young Maraj learned to played the clarinet. Because the clarinet is the second most used pop instrument. That may not be true. Anyhew, she went onto graduate from LaGuardia High School which specialised in music and the visual and performing arts.

It is rumoured she had initially planned to sing at LaGuardia but lost her voice on the day of the audition. It may have turned out for the best!

By 2007, working under the stage name of "Nicki Minaj", Onika Tanya Maraj released Playtime Is Over with Dirty Money Records. This was followed in 2008 by Sucka Free, the same year she won Female Artist of the Year award at the 2008 Underground Music Awards. This was followed up by Beam Me Up Scotty, another mixtape, in April 2009.

American rapper Lil Wayne discovered her and secured a majot record deal for Minaj and things really took off from there. She had a solo rap verse on Young Money's single "BedRock", and was then chosen by Mariah Carey to be featured on her single and music video for "Up Out My Face".

This lead to a major record label bidding war, which ultimately made the release of the Pink Friday album possible in 2010. The single "Massive Attack" peaked at 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Rap Songs chart. Minaj then became the first female artist to be included on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List and the first female artist to top the chart unaccompanied since 2002.

By October 2010, she had become the first artist to have seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart simultaneously.

Thus she entered into the Minaj "featuring" period of her life in which she popped up on a joint single with The Black Eyed Peas front man, will.i.am, a track featuring Canadian rapper Drake and also featured on French DJ David Guetta's 2011 album, Nothing but the Beat on "Where Them Girls At" and "Turn Me On".

In February of 2012, Minaj debuted her song "Roman Holiday" at the 54th Grammy Awards and was featured on Madonna's twelfth studio album, titled MDNA, alongside M.I.A. on its lead single "Give Me All Your Luvin" which led to the trio performing the song for the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show.

In regards to her sexual image, Minaj says "I grew up and saw females doing certain things, and I thought I had to do that exactly. The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot... and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn’t have to represent the same thing... I made a conscious decision to try to tone down the sexiness, I want people—especially young girls—to know that in life, nothing is going to be based on sex appeal. You’ve got to have something else to go with that".

Minaj has stated that artists who have influenced her musical style include Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Lil Wayne, Lauryn Hill, Jadakiss, Natasha Bedingfield, Foxy Brown, Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott. She was also inspired by Janet Jackson, Madonna, Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Jones, M.I.A. and Cyndi Lauper.

If Minaj can live up to the legacy of any of those girls - we can expect to see her at the top of the charts (and fashion pages) for many more years to come!

Photos : Unknown
Nicki Minaj