Nicki Minaj Did Not Say She Made Female Rappers Mainstream

Nicki Minaj made a very factual statement that many blogs misconstrued and ran with. The female emcee discussed her role in Hip Hop with XXL for their 20th anniversary issue.

My role in Hip Hop has been super unique because when my first album came out, there had been so much time when there wasn’t a female rap album out that went platinum. There wasn’t a big female rap presence right before I got in. So my role was really re-introducing a female rapper to pop culture.

For some reason people interpreted that Nicki was taking credit for introducing female rappers to mainstream, period, but even she knows that’s false. She commends her predecessors like Lauryn Hill, Foxxy Brown, Lil Kim, Queen Latifah, and all the other female rappers that paved a way for her. But let’s be real: Nicki’s statement was all the way true.

For a while, she was the only female rapper making noise until just recently. Nicki has stayed atop of the game with the big boys by herself for about a decade. Female emcees are now getting their long due respect with Cardi B making history with her groundbreaking single, and the 2017 BET Hip Hop Awards hosting an all-female cypher. But just in case you weren’t listening the first time: NICKI MINAJ DID NOT SAY SHE INTRODUCED FEMALE RAPPERS TO MAINSTREAM.

View this post on Instagram

I see ppl remixing my words so let me post "exactly" what I said for the intelligent ones in the back. Now, if you can find the part where I said "I made female rappers mainstream", I'll give you $100,000.00. 😅 blogs & tv shows don't care to do actual research these days, they only care about what grabs your attention… at anyone's expense. Imagine me saying I made female rappers mainstream when there were so many women who already had platinum albums under their belts. 🙃 Lauryn sold 10 million off one album, Eve had platinum singles w/Alicia, Gwen Stefani, her own tv show & clothing line. It doesn't get more mainstream/pop than Missy's biggest singles. Foxy&Kim had platinum albums & shaped the sound of NY female rappers, Latifah had her own sitcom, Trina was on billboard with hits, etc-🙂 I appreciate the love but I never said that. 🦄🦄🦄 now what I DID say is right here for anyone w/their own brain to decipher words on their own. I know it's hard in the social media band wagon era, but try. It's fun. 🙈. When I came out, there had been a drought of a few years where NO female rap album had gone platinum, females weren't getting budgets, the industry did NOT believe in the female rapper anymore. They had stopped generating MONEY for labels. Ask any rap historian or just anyone with a brain. These are facts and nothing but the facts. So I "REINTRODUCED" the "successful" female rapper back to POP CULTURE. Showed big business we were major players in the game just like the boys were. ♥️😍😘 love you guys for holding me down but what's true is true & whats not is just simply not. 🙂 update your blogs & tv shows with what I actually said please 🙄🤣. I can't believe this lil interview made it to tv. Haha. See u guys on tour next year. I got a cpl BIG surprises. AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! 😘

A post shared by Barbie (@nickiminaj) on Oct 17, 2017 at 1:53pm PDT