Nicki Minaj speaks on her early influence of sex-based raps and aim to tone down her style in the new VIBE magazine.
Based off excerpts from her cover feature, Nicki explains why she may limit her rap antics in order to be taken more seriously.
"When I grew up I saw females doing certain things, and I thought I had to do that exactly...The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot . . . and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn't have to represent the same thing...I'm not abandoning the funny voices. I just did a crazy tribute to ODB's 'Shimmy Shimmy Ya'...But it's coming up more with the album. I had a teacher in elementary who would stand on her table and whisper. We'd all turn around like, 'What is this lunatic doing?' But she would achieve what she wanted. She wanted us to stop talking and listen. I feel like I need to mellow it down so people can hear what I have to say."
Last April, Nicki announced plans to drop her untitled debut album this fall.
"Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Motown recording artist Nicki Minaj will release her highly anticipated solo debut album in Fall 2010. 'I don't want to do anything that sounds like what any other female rapper has done,' said Nicki Minaj. 'I want to start a new lane that one day, 10 years from now, girls will say, 'I'm more of a Nicki Minaj type.'"
The rapper recently talked about her position as a female in the rap game.
"You know what, I'm a female entertainer," Nicki clarified, "but I don't let it offend me when people call me a female MC or female rapper, because I just look at it as a challenge. I'm about to climb over every single barrier and just put females on a different map altogether," she continued. "So I take it as it comes. Like, I don't think in five years people will consider me a female rapper--I'll be, like, an entertainer. But, as of right now, I get it. I started off in the underground hip-hop circuit, so I'm a female rapper right now. But it's just the beginning."
Earlier this year, Minaj justified not rushing out her first solo effort.
"I've gotten great feedback from artists I look up to and never thought I'd work with," she explained in an interview. "They're already in line to be on the project. But it's like, 'Do I want to put out a debut album with a thousand features on it or do I wanna finally showcase Nicki?' I'm not worried about features at all...With the album, I think it's more important that people get accustomed to seeing a female rapper again. Before I drop an album, people need to come out and see. People don't even know what a female rapper does. We're so not used to seeing it. It's nonexistent in categories. We don't get nominated. I need to work [the people] up to accepting a female rapper again and accepting my style and all of that -- then the album will come. Honestly, I'd love to put an album out this year, but I don't believe in rushing things either."
Check out a past Nicki Minaj interview down below:
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