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Even though she didn’t take home a single Grammy at this year’s ceremony, Nicki Minaj is still very much a winner. Her show stopping performance at the awards show left the audience intrigued -if nothing else – and lit up the Internet with clever reviews, many in 140 characters or less. Minaj phoned in to Ryan Seacrest’s radio show on KISS FM where she talked about her just released new single.

“‘Starships’ is one of my absolute, absolute favorite records on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded,” she said. “It just sounds like a Ryan Seacrest-type of record, and I’m so excited for you to give this song your blessing, Ryan, because I know people are gonna love it. It feels right. It just feels good. It makes people feel happy and that’s all I want. I want to start the year off with making people feel good. The [Grammy] performance was the performance, that was my clear craziness, and now it’s time to make people dance and have fun, and that’s all I want to do.”

Young Money’s first lady also opened up about taking the stage alongside Madonna at the Super Bowl. The Queens rapper is featured on Madge’s new single “Give Me All Your Luvin,'” which also includes M.I.A. Having worked with a host of big names in music, Minaj likened her experience with Madonna as being second to none. “Meeting Madonna changed my life. Working with Madonna changed my life. Rehearsing with Madonna for two weeks changed my life,” she gushed. “When you look at these amazing women, you have to realize that a lot of work goes into this. I, for the first time, refused to go to any parties. This performance was it and this is the first performance that I’m proud of in my entire career. I saw how much Madonna sacrificed and how much she rehearses and rehearses and rehearses and rehearses, and everyone there was like, ‘We got it.’ But she was like, ‘No, I want you to know this choreography in your sleep.’ We did know it in our sleep by the time we got on the Super Bowl stage. But when I saw that, it inspired me so much, the same way Wayne inspired me to start really becoming a beast as a rapper. The Madonna situation inspired me to give it my all and put that work in.”

The grandiose half-time set which featured LMFAO and Cee Lo Green was quickly overshadowed by rapper M.I.A’s bird-flipping stunt. The move didn’t sit well with Madonna, which she openly expressed during an interview with Seacrest last week, and when asked to give her opinion, Minaj agreed with the Material Girl. “My first feeling was disappointment, only because of my respect for Madonna. I’m a cuckoo lady too, but I would never be able to do it off the strength of Madonna. There are fines that go into these things, and I just thought, ‘Oh my God. I hope they don’t penalize Madonna.’ Madonna knows the artist that M.I.A. is and it was her decision to take the risk with all of us. We were kinda all firecrackers and she took that risk. She’s done some crazy things becoming the icon that she is, so I think that’s why she was able to forgive M.I.A. I love M.I.A. and I don’t want to say anything that is the wrong thing, but me personally, I couldn’t see myself doing it, just for the respect for Madonna. I wouldn’t want any backlash to come back on Madonna.”

Minaj’s Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is due out April 3.