The Young Money first lady and Barbie Queen, Nicki Minaj came to limelight with hit songs like Anaconda, Starships, and Super Bass.
She is the main female independent craftsman to have seven singles simultaneously on the Billboard 100 diagram.
She is a Trinidadian singer, rapper, songwriter, and actress whose real name is Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty.
NICKI MINAJ | |
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Nicki Minaj: History, Bio, Photo | |
WIKI FACTS & ABOUT DATA | |
Full Name: | Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty |
Stage Name: | Nicki Minaj |
Born: | 8 December 1982 (age 41 years old) |
Place of Birth: | Saint James, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago |
Child: | Ninja |
Nationality: | American, Trinidadian |
Parents: | Robert Maraj, Carol Maraj |
Height: | 1.57 m |
Siblings: | Ming Maraj, Jelani Maraj, Micaiah Maraj, Brandon Lamar |
Boyfriend • Husband: | Kenneth Petty |
Occupation: | Musician • Actress |
Net Worth: | $80 Million |
Table of Contents
Early Life
Born and Brought into the world on December 8, 1982, in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago, Nicki Minaj moved with her family to Queens, New York, when she was five years of age.
Robert Maraj, her father was a heavy drug addict with a long history of violence which, at some point, set fire to the family’s home in a failed attempt to kill Minaj’s mother, Carol Maraj.
These early struggles helped her stay focused and increased her drive and passion for rising above her parents and changing their lives.
Before the name “Nicki Minaj” came to fame, she bore different personas like “Cookie” and “Harajuku Barbie“.
Nicki Minaj had great zeal and enthusiasm for performance. At the age of 12, she initiated her first rap, then went into acting at LaGuardia High School of Music and Art.
According to her, this was the school that inspired the movie fame though it didn’t start immediately.
While growing up, she took up jobs like waitressing at Red Lobster, where she was fired for being rude to customers.
Career
Nicki Minaj took up backup singing roles for local New York City rappers, including Full Force. Not quite long, she began writing her material. She was later discovered by the Dirty Money CEO Fendi, who came across Nicki Minaj‘s MySpace page. He cherished what he heard and marked her to his name.
That association drove Nicki Minaj to Lil Wayne, who teamed up with her on a progression of mixtapes. The first, Playtime Is Over, was delivered in April 2007, and subsequent mixtapes, including Sucka Free (2008) and Beam Me Up Scotty (2009). In August 2009, she signed to Lil Wayne‘s Young Money label, thus becoming its first-ever female artist. She solidified her career by collaborating with Mariah Carey and Robin Thicke.
In April 2010, she delivered her first single, Huge Attack, trailed by Your Love. After two months, she won Best Hip Hop Female at the yearly BET Awards. She devoted the honor to Lil Wayne. The Pink Friday album dropped that November, with eight singles in it. It went triple platinum, and it received positive reviews.
In 2012 she released another album titled ‘Roman Reloaded‘. The record proved to be a big hit, with tracks like the infectious dance songs Starships, Pound the Alarm, Va Va Voom, and Roman Holiday, where she went on to perform at the Grammy Awards that same year.
Nicki Minaj delivered eight other singles from her following collection, The Pinkprint, on December 12, 2014. The albums included big shots in the music industry like Beyoncé, Chris Brown, Ariana Grande, and Drake. It went twofold platinum, and in 2016, she won the Best Female Hip Hop Artist grant at the BET Awards for the seventh successive time.
She showed up on a massive number of singles in 2017. With the synchronous delivery and achievements of No Frauds, Lament in Your Tears, and Transformed It, she assumed control over the record of most passages on the Billboard Hot 100 by a female craftsman, an imprint recently held by Aretha Franklin.
In film roles, she provided the voice of mammoth “Steffie” in 2012’s Ice Age: Continental Drift and The Angry Birds Movie 2, in which she had a voice role. She made her movie debut in 2014’s The Other Woman, opposite Cameron Diaz. She later received a Teen Choice Awards 2016 nomination for her role in Barbershop: The Next Cut.
She has led several endorsement deals and advertising campaigns with big brands like MAC Cosmetics, Adidas Originals and Pepsi. She even has her scent line. She is likewise an investor in the Tidal web-based feature.
In April, Nicki Minaj dropped two new tracks, Chun-Li and Barbie Tingz. She later showcased another “Rich Sex” track featuring Lil Wayne and “Bed” with Ariana Grande. She also featured rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine on the track “FEFE.”
On August 8, the same year, Nicki Minaj launched her Radio show on Apple Music’s Beats 1 station, two days after her fourth studio album, Queen, debuted at No. 2.
In early 2019, Nicki Minaj kicked off The Nicki World Tour in Frankfurt, Germany, alongside late rapper Juice Wrld. Along with her many collaborations, the artist dropped her first solo single of the year, “Megatron,” in late June.
In September, Nicki Minaj posted a stunning tweet that she had decided to retire to have a family but promised her fans more music to come. She got hitched to her beau, Kenneth Petty, in October.
After kicking off 2020 with the Meghan Trainor collaboration “Nice to Meet Ya,” Nicki Minaj appeared as a guest judge on the season 12 premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race. She then joined Doja Cat for a remix of “Say So,” which became Nicki Minaj‘s first song to reach the Billboard Hot 100.
Personal Life
Nicki Minaj married Kenneth Petty in October 2019. In July 2020, she announced that she’s expecting, and they welcomed their first child, a son, on September 30, 2020, whom she always refers to as “Papa Bear” in public.
Net Worth
The American-based Trinidadian rapper, Nicki Minaj has accumulated an estimated net worth of $80 Million.