Source: Gilbert Carrasquillo / Getty
and her influence in Hip-Hop culture overall can and should not be understated. The award-winning, multi-platinum selling rapper, and fashion icon is 38 today (Dec. 8), and fans worldwide are celebrating the Queen from Queens.
Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in 1982, Onika Tanya Maraj arrived to Queens, N.Y. at the age of five and had dreams of becoming an actress after being auditioning for and attending Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in the Upper Westside of Manhattan. While she found some success as an actress here and there, music became her focus in the mid-2000 and she embarked on a three-year mixtape run under Lil Wayne’s Young Money Records imprint via Cash Money Records.
In 2010, Minaj released her studio debut album
Pink Friday, which has gone on to go triple-platinum and released a handful of successful singles, including the “Moment for Life” track featuring Drake, and the pop-friendly “Super Bass” among them. She followed the successful album with
Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, which enjoyed chart success with the singles “Starships” and “Beez In The Trap” with 2 Chainz, with the album going double platinum in the end.
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2014’s
The Pinkprint continued Minaj’s chart-topping run and cemented her status as a viable force in music beyond her gender. And her impact carried over to her 2018 album
Queen, which as of now has been certified platinum by the RIAA.
While an album hasn’t been released since then, Minaj has filled the void with a scene-stealing feature on the remix of Doja Cat’s “Say So” remix this year, becoming the first all-woman Hip-Hop collaboration to top the Billboard charts. Minaj has also appeared alongside Tekashi 6ix9ine on the track “Trollz,” another huge hit.
Minaj and her husband Kenneth Perry are still enjoying the new parents’ life
with the recent birth of their son. But it should be noted that Nicki Minaj still has plenty left in the tank and a legion of loving fans ready to throw their support behind their idol.
That is clear from the response and messages we’ve found on Twitter this morning, and we’ve got some of those reactions listed out below.
Happy Birthday, Nicki Minaj.
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Photo: Getty
