Recently, conversations surrounding Nicki Minaj and her legacy have been reignited. Most notably, Joe Budden recently set aside his personal feelings about the native New Yorker to declare that she deserves way more recognition by major institutions in the industry like The Recording Academy for her musical achievements. Considering her lack of Grammy awards, it's obvious that credit has yet to be given to the blueprint. The numbers do speak for themselves, though, and the hitmaker has just achieved another never-before reached feat.
Based on updated data from Youtube confirmed by chart data aggregate source chart data, the 38-year-old Queen of Rap's visual for her 2014 single "Anaconda" off her third studio album The Pinkprint has just surpassed 1 billion views on Youtube. This becomes her sixth video including as a featured artist to surpass this threshold. More impressively, the video becomes the first by a solo female rapper to achieve this.
At the time of its release, the visual for "Anaconda" had an indisputable impact on pop culture. Breaking the 24-hour Vevo streaming record by accumulating 19.6 million views in its first day, Nicki received backlash for the raunchy derriere-filled visual. Some called her "desperate" to sell records. The video was later ranked as the 13th greatest video of the decade by Billboard.
As for Joe Budden's comments about the first lady of Young Money, he echoed the calls of many other rappers in the game. "Nicki Minaj needs her flowers. Whoever the Grammy board is, whoever's on there, y'all are not the one's that get to determine that Nicki Minaj and all of her impact and influence don't get to win an award. I'm sorry," said Budden on his podcast.
Congrats to Nicki on earning this new distinction!