Nicki Minaj's 2010 debut full-length Pink Friday produced six singles that peaked inside the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 and has since been certified triple platinum. The culmination of several years of mounting hype, the album springboarded off of Nicki's recent appearances on radio smashes like Young Money's "BedRock" and Kanye West's "Monster," and before those, a triptych of mixtapes: 2007's Playtime is Over, 2008's Sucka Free, and 2009's Beam Me Up Scotty.
Nicki grew up in Jamaica, Queens and studied acting at Manhattan's famed LaGuardia High School. MySpace was instrumental to her earliest successes, as it was for Drake, A$AP Rocky, and many of her contemporaries. She was initially a member of the hip hop quartet The Hoodstars, which also included her former beau Safaree Samuels. She eventually ditched The Hoodstars, uploaded a handful tracks to MySpace, and started to get noticed by people in the music industry. Her talent was evident, but it wasn't until she appeared on the street DVD "On the Come Up" that her career definitively took off. Her mean flow and strong New York accent, in alliance with her busty figure, caught the intention of Lil Wayne. Wayne promptly installed Nicki as the first lady (Nicki used to say that she was Wayne's "mistress"—more Lewinsky than Hillary) of Young Money.
While Nicki's career has been wildly successful, it has also forced her to compromise at turns at adhere to certain industry trends. Playtime is Over, Sucka Free, and Beam Me Up Scotty present a more pure view of the artist she set out to be, and are essential in understanding the artist she has become. Today is her 35th birthday; let's celebrate by revisiting some of the best tracks from her early mixtapes.
Dirty Money
Nicki put out "Dirty Money" before her first mixtape, before she had a stylist, just a girl from Queens grateful to have anyone at all giving her music the time of day. "Shoutout to everybody who is seeing this," she tells the camera.
The Jump Off
This song was my first exposure to Nicki Minaj. I immediately bought all available Nicki Minaj futures, and watched the video on repeat for another hour. The Fendi she shouts out in the first line is her then-manager who suggested she change her last name Maraj to Minaj. Fendi's co-manager at the time: Debra Antney, mother of Waka Flocka.
Wuchoo Know
Antney claimed that Big Fendi wanted to turn Nicki into Lil Kim 2.0. This in part explained the Barbie/Kim she sought to cultivate on her debut mixtape. "We're going with the whole Barbie doll theme so I'm gonna be doing a lot of kooky poses because I have to look like a doll straight out the box," she told MTV in 2007. "But I'm not a Barbie that needs to play—Playtime is Over."
Click Clack
Nicki's freestyle over Slim Thug's "Click Clack" offers a savage body blow against which the Knicks still have no comeback: "Number one draft, I'm New York's pick / I don't lose like them dudes on the New York Knicks."
Warning
Biggie's "Warning" begins with a call from a friend tipping him off that he may be the target of a murder plot. Nicki's reimagination is considerably lower stakes but no less riveting; she received word that her man has been unfaithful, and heads off to find the woman with whom he's been sleeping and kill her.
Dead Wrong
On "Dead Wrong," another Biggie flip, Nicki transforms terrible lines into great ones through sheer willpower. I'm flyer than a maggot / I'm on some shit.
Autobiography
Abortion is a topic that isn't touched on enough in male-dominated hip hop. As Nicki explains in "Autobiography," the abortion she got at 15 will stay with her forever.
Itty Bitty Piggy
"I was OK, but I wasn't focusing on the music. I was doing pictures and stuff like that, so people knew me more for pictures than my music," Nicki told MTV in 2009. "But with the Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape, they have to take me seriously as an artist. So, I would say maybe a year ago, I started sharpening my skills. Recently, I've been singing more. Now it's official — it's going down like 'Town Julie Brown."
I Get Crazy
This Lil Wayne-featuring "I Get Money" redux climbed to #20 on Billboard's Hot Rap Songs and marked Nicki's first appearance on the charts.
Here's what she said about the track in an interview with MTV: "That's kinda taboo in hip-hop to switch up your verses after [they are laid down], but he kinda bodied me and he stepped the energy up on it — so I stepped my energy up on it. The new version of 'I Get Crazy' is like a rock feel, 'cause we're just all rocked out. Being a lunatic and not caring."
Still I Rise
A post-808s & Heartbreak take on T.I.'s "No Matter What," "Still I Rise" finds Nicki picking apart her career and persona from a hater's perspective. Her conclusion ("Bitches is like crabs in a bucket / You see a bad bitch getting shine, you should love it") would be echoed in a tweet by Cardi B eight years later: "You either going to be the bitch they’re talking about, or the miserable bitch doing the talking." It sucks to be a hater.