Nicki Minaj Opens Up on Childhood Abuse, Sexuality

Tweet

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, Nicki Minaj reveals that her ambition stems from a painful childhood. (Read the full story here.) "When I first came to America," she says, "I would go in my room and and kneel down at the foot of my bed and pray that god would make me rich so that I could take care of my mother." Minaj's father was a violent drug addict once set their house on fire while her mother was inside. She has no qualms about sharing these stories, even though her parents still live together and her father would prefer that she not share their history. "It's the price you pay when you abuse drugs and alcohol," she says. "Maybe one day your daughter will be famous and talk to every magazine about it, so think about that, dads out there who want to be crazy."

Photos: Nicki Minaj's Best Looks

Other highlights from the article:

• Early in her career Minaj claimed to be bisexual, but now says she just did that to get attention. "I think girls are sexy," she says. "But I'm not going to lie and say that I date girls."

• She's immensely proud of the fact that her and Drake are proving that rappers can come from any background. "At one point you had to sell a few kilos to be considered a credible rapper," she says. "But now it's like Drake and I are embracing the fact that we went to school, we love acting, we love theater, and that's ok — and it's especially good for the black community to know that's ok, that's embraced."

• Minaj has mapped out a five-year plan that includes a film career, a perfume line, a clothing line and possibly records that feature her singing as much as rapping. "There's this fear of not being perfect," she says. "There's some songs I just won't write because I'm afraid of not meeting my expectations of what I know that song could be. I don't compete with other people. I compete with myself."

Review: Pink Friday

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES The 10 Best Zombie Movie Scenes
• 
  TV The Most WTF? Moments of 'Mad Men'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter