An emotional Nicki Minaj appeared on Zane Lowe’s Beats 1 show on Thursday, where the rapper confirmed there are was some bad blood between her and fellow female rapper Cardi B.
Minaj said that prior to a recent Cardi interview, the 25-year-old pregnant rapper had never shown her “genuine love,” and explained the drama that brewed between them when they both appeared on the hit Migos track “MotorSport.”
Minaj said that originally only rapper Quavo was on the song when she asked to be on it, and he later texted to ask if it was OK to put the other rappers in hip-hop group Migos on it — Cardi’s fiance Offset, and Takeoff — as well as Cardi. Minaj says she gave her blessing, but later felt abandoned by Migos and Cardi.
In an interview last November with Capital XTRA, some fans thought Cardi threw shade at 35-year-old Minaj when she said Minaj altered her verse on “MotorSport.”
“The only thing with Cardi that really, really, really hurt my feelings was the first interview she did after ‘MotorSport’ came out,” Minaj says. “With ‘MotorSport,’ I kinda felt ambushed. The first thing that came out of her mouth about a Nicki Minaj feature was ‘she changed the verse’ … and when it was time to clear the air about that, no one did that. All of them allowed me to look like I lied.”
Minaj later said the drama escalated when her and Cardi B couldn’t film the music video together because of a scheduling conflict involving her hairstylist, Tokyo Stylez, who couldn’t make it at the time. Minaj said Cardi knew about the scheduling conflict because she uses the same hairstylist, but still didn’t clear the air in interviews or on social media.
“I texted [hairstylist Tokyo Stylez], ‘You know if I don’t show up the day she’s shooting, they’re gonna act like it’s because I’m doing it to be mean with the current Nicki hate train’ … They [Migos and Cardi] all knew that … and still did interviews and jumped around it just to paint Nicki as the bad person, so you could play the victim. That really, really hurt me because I really, fully supported her.”
Minaj then cries when talking about feeling that Cardi had acted ungrateful towards her.
“Up until this recent interview that she did, I had never seen her show me genuine love,” Minaj says. “I could just imagine how many girls wish they could have been on a song with Nicki Minaj. I mean, I’m not saying it in a cocky way, but, like, yikes.”
“I remember when I first came in the game… I would only be singing their praises and saying thank you,” Minaj continues. “The first interview she did, it just hurt me because she looked so aggravated and angry. She just kept saying she didn’t hear it…. I was like, What?”
However, Minaj did congratulate Cardi on her success, and said she doesn’t hold any grudges.
On Thursday, Minaj also debuted her new singles, “Chun-Li” and “Barbie Tingz,” and called her upcoming album “the best album in my life that I’ve ever created.”
In her own interview with Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio earlier this month, Cardi denied having a beef with Minaj.
“If you ain’t f**king my man or taking my money from me, stopping my money, I don’t really give a f**k about you,” Cardi said. “People just want to pin it so much because it’s entertainment … I spoke to [Minaj] before … I don’t want nobody sneak-dissing me. If it’s something where you can talk it out, let’s talk it out … I feel like fans just keep doing it because they want that.”
Cardi recently dropped her album, Invasion of Privacy. Watch the video below for five big revelations about the rapper from the critically acclaimed album.
