Nicki Minaj Blasts Travis Scott and Streaming Services (Again) on Queen Radio
Nicki Minaj continued to lambast Travis Scott after his Astroworld beat her Queen in the race for the Number One album this week.
Minaj used her show on Apple Music’s Beats 1 radio on Tuesday to harangue Scott for what she claims were unfair promotional tactics that boosted his album sales: bundling albums with merchandise and concert tickets and using girlfriend Kylie Jenner’s impressive Instagram following to raise awareness of those bundles. Minaj first unloaded her feelings on Twitter on Sunday; then as now, she failed to mention that she relied on some of the same techniques as Scott to help her own sales. She also added a non-album hit single to Queen halfway through release week.
During another wild, unpredictable, not-safe-for-children Beats 1 broadcast, Minaj presented a series of awards of her own invention, including “Cocksucker of the Day” and “Secret Hater of the Year.” She wasted no time in handing “Ho Nigga of the Week” to Scott, declaring that he won it “by a fucking landslide.”
“Travis Scott is out here selling fucking clothes, and he got y’all thinking he’s selling fucking music,” Minaj said. “Sit your stupid ass down!”
Later she added, “When [Scott] realized that Queen was about to [be] the Number One album in America, he and his label decided to have Kylie and baby Stormi put up a tour pass … He had her post and say, ‘Hey, me and Stormi can’t wait to see y’all.’ How are you selling something that does not have anything to do with your album but it is being counted on Billboard as album sales?” (These purchases would only be counted towards sales if fans who bought tickets redeemed their download codes to obtain a copy of Scott’s album. Minaj was also bundling tickets and album sales, according to Billboard.)
Minaj returned to this point again and again. “What we’re not gonna do is have this fucking autotune man come up in here selling fucking sweaters and telling y’all he sold half a million fucking albums, ’cause he didn’t,” she said. (This week, Nielsen reported that Scott sold 205,000 album-equivalent units.)
Minaj suggested that she was duty-bound to expose the injustices of the chart rules that robbed her of the Number One album. “If I come to your job … and told you not to speak out about things that are unfair, that would be fucking crazy,” she said. “People think that because you’re rich and famous, you shouldn’t be able to speak out about things in your own industry that are unfair.”
“There’s a lot of rappers behind the scene that want to talk about it and they’re scared,” she assured her listeners. “But sweetheart, I’m not scared.”
At the same time as Minaj rained insults on the current chart rules, she took partial responsibility for them. “You know how many bullets I’ve taken for you motherfuckers to get streaming to count on Billboard?” she asked. “You motherfuckers is getting streaming because somebody took that bullet, because somebody was brave enough. Somebody had a big fucking dick enough, somebody had balls enough, to say, ‘We are tired of having you steal our music and we’re not getting credited!'”
Minaj suggested that her willingness to “take that bullet” linked her with heroes of the abolitionist and civil rights movements. “I don’t mind taking that hit!” the rapper exclaimed. “Harriet Tubman had to shake shit up; Rosa Parks had to shake shit up. [On Monday, Minaj also mentioned Tubman on Twitter.] Rosa Parks probably had the worst day of her life when she said, ‘no, enough is enough.’ And y’all might laugh and say, ‘she’s comparing herself to Harriet Tubman.’ Man, fuck you — I am going to compare myself to strong, black queens.”
Just as Minaj did on Sunday after the album sales numbers were first announced, she threw a series of jabs at Scott and then claimed that all her insults were in good fun. “Please understand this is entertainment,” she said. “None of this should ever have any of your panties in a bunch. Sometimes when I am tweeting and saying things, people really think it’s angry black lady time — never.”
A few minutes later, she turned her attention back to Scott. “You played your fucking self also for having your fucking friend come on the internet talking up for you,” Minaj asserted. “You stupid fuck! You’re a fucking man! You got your homeboy talking for you, your girlfriend posting tour passes saying you sold albums — stop it! Knock it the fuck off!”