Nicki Minaj

Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, known professionally as Nicki Minaj, is a Trinidadian rapper, singer, and songwriter. Raised in New York City, she gained recognition in the late 2000s and became one of the world's best-selling music artists, selling over 100 million records. She is noted for her dynamic rap flow, alter egos, and musical versatility, and is credited with driving the mainstream resurgence of female rap since the 2010s.

Minaj was born on December 8, 1982, in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. She lived with her grandmother in Trinidad before moving at age five to live with her mother in Queens, New York. She attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. After graduating, she briefly acted in an Off-Broadway play and held several customer service and office jobs while pursuing music.

From 2002 to 2004, Minaj performed with the group Hoodstars. In 2006, she signed with Dirty Money Entertainment and adopted her stage name. She gained public attention through three mixtapes released between 2007 and 2009: Playtime Is Over, Sucka Free, and Beam Me Up Scotty. In late 2009, she signed with Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment. Shortly after, she became the first female solo artist to simultaneously chart seven singles on the US Billboard Hot 100.

Minaj released her debut studio album, Pink Friday, in 2010. It topped the US Billboard 200 chart and featured the single "Super Bass." Her second album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (2012), incorporated dance-pop and produced the hit single "Starships." She returned to a hip-hop focus on The Pinkprint (2014) and Queen (2018), which yielded "Anaconda" and "Chun-Li." In 2020, she achieved her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles through the duets "Say So" and "Trollz." Her fifth studio album, Pink Friday 2 (2023), generated her first solo US number-one single, "Super Freaky Girl."

Beyond music recording, Minaj founded the record label Heavy On It in 2023 and hosted Queen Radio from 2018 to 2023. Her commercial endeavors include lines of fragrances, press-on nails, and sneakers. She has acted in the comedy films The Other Woman (2014) and Barbershop: The Next Cut (2016), provided voice roles in Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) and The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), and served as a judge on American Idol in 2013.

Minaj's accolades include a Brit Award, five Billboard Music Awards, nine American Music Awards, eight MTV Video Music Awards, eleven BET Awards, and three Guinness World Records. In 2016, Time included her on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and in 2023, Billboard and Vibe named her the greatest female rapper of all time.