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As Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Diddy” Combs sits in a Brooklyn prison awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges and prepares to fend off multiple civil lawsuits alleging sexual assault, those in the music industry are asking how much of his wealth could be at stake.
Sources tell Billboard that the hip-hop mogul has sold many of the assets that earned him hundreds of millions of dollars. And Forbes estimated that Combs’ net worth — once fueled by ventures in music, fashion, liquor and cable TV — has fallen from approximately $740 million in 2019 to $400 million as of this past June.
Federal prosecutors and attorneys for the alleged victims likely will go after the money Combs earned from his businesses and other assets, and his own legal defense potentially could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars as well. That said, prosecutors will need to prove that the businesses were in some way connected to the alleged crimes, to which Combs has pled not guilty. Lawyers representing individuals suing Combs in civil court do not need to meet that barrier of proof. It is unclear when a jury trial will take place for the federal charges, and the many civil lawsuits he faces are at various stages of adjudication.
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Combs’ attorneys, representatives and federal prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment.
Here is a breakdown of Combs’ current financial picture viewed through his music, real estate and cable TV assets:
Bad Boy Records
While Combs began diversifying his investments long ago, his core music industry holdings have dissipated. He once owned his masters and publishing rights through Bad Boy Records. Currently, he may still own his publishing rights and albums recorded from 2010 onward, but he likely no longer owns the albums he recorded before 2009, which were the most successful of his career.
B.I.G. and Diddy
That’s because of a joint venture Combs entered with Warner Music Group for the entire Bad Boy catalog in 2005. The deal ended in 2009 with WMG retaining full ownership of the vast majority, if not all, of the catalog released by Bad Boy prior to that year. Those include the catalogs of The Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans, Mase and another dozen or so platinum albums by Bad Boy artists.
In June, Billboard estimated that Diddy’s own catalog brings in $2.4 million annually in recorded masters revenue, as well as $600,000 in publishing revenue, of which his share is $222,000. We estimated his catalog would carry a valuation of $42 million.
Since determining that Combs no longer owns his best-selling albums, Billboard revised that estimate — based on a calculation that almost 60% of his catalog’s annual activity is owned by WMG — to $1.05 million. His music publishing earnings remain unchanged, which adds up to $1.25 million in take home pay.
Catalog
One asset Combs is unlikely to sell soon is his catalog because his the nature of the alleged abuses outlined in the various legal cases he is facing and the fact that recordings were not put out under a single, identifiable brand — he has released music as Puff Daddy, Puff Daddy & the Family, P. Diddy, Diddy and Diddy-Dirty Money — make it harder to market, institutional investors tell Billboard.
While private equity investors have no appetite for music issued under the Diddy names, financial sources say that music from other artists he has worked with still have value, and those artists could sell their income streams. However, some Bad Boy Records artists have asked the various majors if their albums might drop the Bad Boy logo, sources tell Billboard.
In 2023, Combs disclosed that he has been returning ownership of publishing to the artists who recorded on Bad Boy Records. In a Q&A with Billboard, he reported that Mase, Evans, The LOX, 112 and the estate of The Notorious B.I.G. are among the creatives who have already signed agreements to regain those rights.
REVOLT
Co-founded by Combs as a music cable channel in 2013, REVOLT was initially broadcast by Comcast and Time Warner Cable to a combined roughly 34 million subscribers. Over the past decade, it has built a reputation as a prominent black-owned media company and has been profitable since 2018. Last summer it was part of a group of investors bidding for a majority stake in Paramount Global’s BET Media Group. As a private company, it has never disclosed its financials. Combs stepped down from his role as chairman of REVOLT last November, and reports circulated in March that he sold his stake to an anonymous bidder. Sources tell Billboard Combs’ stake likely netted him a sum in the low to mid-eight figures.
Real Estate
It is documented in court documents filed in connection with the federal charges against Combs that Combs owns homes in Los Angeles and Miami. The latter, which is located on Miami’s exclusive Star Island has multiple pools, an on-site spa and a guesthouse was listed as part of his collateral for his $50 million bail bond. (Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky denied his release, and Combs’ attorneys filed an appeal this week.) Combs’ home in Beverly Hills is currently for sae for $61.5 million.
When Hurricane Helene flooded the streets of Asheville, N.C., it forced the postponement of a Sept. 30 Gangstagrass show at The Orange Peel.
As a result, the band — a genre-busting hybrid of bluegrass and hip-hop — revised its itinerary and spent the previous night in Atlanta, creating a dinner menu of grilled salmon, beef, asparagus, mushrooms and sweet potatoes.
Despite the daunting weather and travel issues, the band was in a congenial mood. Just a week earlier, its new album, The Blackest Thing on the Menu, became its second project to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Bluegrass Albums chart dated Sept. 28. The act’s previous No. 1, 2020’s No Time for Enemies, was the first atop the chart to feature two MCs. Neither No. 1 was originally on the career menu.
“It’s not like it was a goal from the start, or anything on the agenda,” founder Rench says. “Our aim is to make great music, put out our message and play awesome shows. Billboard charts aren’t really a part of that. It’s just kind of gravy on the mashed potatoes.”
The first Gangstagrass No. 1 occurred during the pandemic, and the members told themselves it was a fluky representation of their pent-up fan base’s support.
“Doing it again,” MC R-SON says now, “that’s extra special.”
So was the timing: It occurred as the International Bluegrass Music Association held its IBMA Awards and conference in Raleigh, N.C. Gangstagrass decidedly tests the boundaries of the genre. It fires up the traditional banjo and fiddle with unexpected beats and raps, fusing the sound of rural Kentucky with the music of urban New York.
On paper, the mixture probably shouldn’t work. But Gangstagrass is built on a belief that folks who ride tractors have more in common with people who ride the subway than might be expected. Bluegrass and hip-hop both represent working-class cultures, and both rely heavily on the music’s pulse, be it a rolling banjo or a syncopated drum machine.
“If you have poor folks anywhere, they’re telling their stories, and they’re building from that,” R-SON says. “It works better than people would ever have imagined, just because a lot of their existences are similar.”
Rench didn’t necessarily recognize that when he launched Gangstagrass as a studio experiment in 2006 from his home in Brooklyn. He made it available for free online, and the reaction quickly exceeded his expectations.
“It was getting downloaded so much, it was crashing the site, and so I could see that people really liked it,” Rench says. “I knew then that putting together a live band to actually do this, with instrumentalists, would take it in a much bigger direction.”
Adding to the plot, producers for the FX series Justified enlisted Gangstagrass for a theme song, “Long Hard Times To Come,” in 2010. The group’s diverse musical origins appealed to an eclectic audience, too, bringing together seemingly incompatible constituencies.
“We got little kids, middle schoolers, high schoolers, college kids, their parents, their parents’ parents, their parents’ parents’ parents,” MC Dolio the Sleuth says.
“We have New York hipsters, we have proud rednecks from Texas,” Rench adds. “It really is like kind of a little bit of everything.”
The fan base also includes some of the band’s professional peers. Dobro icon Jerry Douglas, who joined the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on Sept. 26, appears on “The Only Way Out Is Through,” the lead track on The Blackest Thing on the Menu. Dan Tyminski, the lead singer on The Soggy Bottom Boys’ “Man of Constant Sorrow,” joined Gangstagrass to perform that song at the end of the IBMA’s 2022 convention.
“The best players and these bluegrass legends, they really get it,” Rench says. “The bluegrass purists that are skeptical [of] us really don’t have much to stand on when they see all their favorite bluegrass players backing us up.”
Gangstagrass likely reflects larger cultural trends. Beyoncè’s Cowboy Carter debuted at No. 1 on Top Country Albums earlier this year. And Vice President Kamala Harris is the first female candidate of color to run for president on a major-party ticket. Polls and analysts suggest she has a good chance of winning. The Gangstagrass audience portends a possible future where people of disparate backgrounds can increasingly find commonality.
“We can see how crucial it will be for people to not be afraid of each other,” Rench says. “There’s a difference between being different and being divided, and if we can get them to not be divided and to be comfortable with each other and understand that they’re part of the same citizenship of the earth and of the country, that’s a huge step forward.”
That’s an ambitious goal, but one that’s delivered with a good helping of joy. The new album features a song, “Mother,” that explores economic disparities and a foreboding environmental outlook, but it’s followed by “Obligatory Braggadocio,” a comical self-celebration — “I got big wheels on my big truck” — over a rowdy Southern rock musical bed.
Even the album’s title is the result of an inside joke that stems from fiddler B.E. Farrow asking a waiter, “What’s the blackest thing on the menu?” When Rench suggested the title months later, the band broke into laughter, then grew quiet. The Blackest Thing on the Menu made a statement about the band.
“I kid you not,” Dolio says. “Two rainbows shot out from the sky, a double rainbow — double rainbow — right in front of us over New York City.”
It was a development as unlikely — and as hopeful — as the band itself.
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Hidden up a wooded hill in the sprawling backyard of his suburban Los Angeles estate, Dijon “Mustard” McFarlane is on the tennis court, perfecting his forehand. “I’m an extremist,” the 34-year-old producer explains as he warms up his top spin. “I play every day, sometimes two times a day.” The L.A.-born musician, who shot to […]
Janice Combs, mother to Sean “Diddy” Combs, has released a statement on behalf of the Combs family amid ongoing sex crime allegations against the music mogul.
Combs was indicted by federal prosecutors in mid-September on racketeering and sex trafficking charges and denied bail.
In a statement released Sunday (Oct. 6) through attorney Natlie G. Figgers, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Combs’ mother said Diddy is not guilty of the allegations against him: “My son is not the monster they have painted him to be, and he deserves the chance to tell his side.”
“It is heartbreaking to see my son judged not for the truth, but for a narrative created out of lies,” reads her statement, which comes five days after it was reported Diddy will face lawsuits from 120 additional accusers for alleged incidents dating as far back as 1991. “To bear witness [to] what seems to be like a public lynching of my son before he has had the opportunity to prove his innocence is a pain too unbearable to put into words. Like every human being, my son deserves to have his day in court, to finally share his side, and to prove his innocence.”
Indictment documents unsealed on Sept. 17 said, “For decades, Sean Combs … abused, threatened and coerced women and others around him to fulfill his sexual desires, protect his reputation and conceal his conduct. To do so, Combs relied on the employees, resources and the influence of his multi-faceted business empire that he led and controlled.”
Combs was denied bail. If convicted of the charges, he faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of life behind bars.
On Sunday, his mother said, “I am not here to portray my son as perfect because he is not. He has made mistakes in his past, as we all have.”
She referenced the lawsuit Combs settled last year from singer and ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura, who accused him of rape and abuse. Combs had denied her allegations, but when video surfaced of him physically assaulting her in a hotel, issued an apology.
“My son may not have been entirely truthful about certain things, such as denying he has ever gotten violent with an ex-girlfriend when the hotel’s surveillance showed otherwise,” Janice Combs said in her statement. “Sometimes, the truth and a lie become so closely intertwined that it becomes terrifying to admit one part of the story, especially when that truth is outside the norm or is too complicated to be believed. This is why I believe my son’s civil legal team opted to settle the ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit instead of contesting it until the end, resulting in a ricochet effect as the federal government used this decision against my son by interpreting it as an admission of guilt.”
She said this does not make him guilty of the multiple “repulsive allegations and the grave charges leveled against him.”
“Many individuals who were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated had their freedom taken from them not because they were guilty of the crimes they were accused of, but because they didn’t fit the image of what this society considers to be a ‘good person.’ History has showed us how individuals can be wrongfully convicted due to their past actions or mistakes,” she said.
“It is truly agonizing to watch the world turn against my son so quickly and easily over lies and misconceptions, without ever hearing his side or affording him the opportunity to present his side,” she added.
“These lies thrown at him are motivated by those seeking a financial gain, and not justice,” reads the statement. “These individuals saw how quickly my son’s civil legal team settled his ex-girlfriend’s lawsuit, so they believe they can receive a quick payday by falsely accusing my son. False allegations of sexual assault thwart true victims of sexual violence from getting the justice they deserve. To make matters worse, the federal government is now using these lies to prosecute my son. This injustice has been unbearable for our family. The worst part of this ordeal is watching my beloved son be stripped of his dignity, not for what he did, but for what people choose to believe about him.”
Teasing “exclusive releases, immersive experiences, engaging discussions and insane performances,” Travis Scott is quadrupling down on his role as artistic director of the forthcoming ComplexCon Las Vegas on Nov. 16 and 17. He will create CactusCon at the inaugural Vegas iteration of ComplexCon, the festival and exhibition dedicated to “convergence culture” at the intersection of style, music, art and food.
Scott and Cactus Jack, his creative collective and record label, will produce 10 exclusive collaborations for ComplexCon, design exclusive merch only sold on site and curate an entire area of the show floor called CactusCon, with hand-selected brands. CactusCon will infuse Scott’s vision and Cactus Jack iconography into sensory touch points and “Easter eggs” throughout the two-day event. Scott will also headline the festival and exhibition on Sunday evening with a performance at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Scott performed at ComplexCon’s Long Beach launch in 2016. Since then, the weekender celebrating the convergence of style, sneakers, pop culture, music, art, food, innovation and the creative minds shaping those trends has traversed the globe with conventions in Chicago (2019) and Hong Kong (2024). Relocating to Vegas promises a two-day gathering four times the size of Long Beach’s, spanning more than 1 million square feet of brands, drops, activations and experiences and with 60,000 anticipated attendees.
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“Travis Scott helped inaugurate the first ComplexCon, and we are excited to welcome him back with an expanded role and as the Sunday night headliner. Travis Scott defines this generation of Complex fans, and we are excited to be working with him in our new home in Las Vegas,” says Complex CEO Aaron Levant.
In February, NTWRK, a live-video shopping platform and marketplace, signed an agreement to acquire Complex. Levant, who co-founded NTWRK with Jamie Iovine and Gaston Dominguez-Letelier in 2018, leads the new company. Levant originally co-created ComplexCon alongside Marc Eckō, Complex’s founder, in 2016.
ComplexCon has become known for exclusive releases from Nike and Adidas and appearances by the late Virgil Abloh, as well as Nigo, Kid Cudi, A$AP Rocky and Hiroshi Fujiwara. Previous artistic directors have included Takashi Murakami, Blackpink creative director Verdy, Cactus Plant Flea Market, J Balvin and Pharrell Williams.
This year, attendees will have the opportunity to shop brands including 032C, Ambush, Asics, Awake NY, BYREDO, Cactus Plant Flea Market, Ecko Unltd., EDGLRD, Fear of God Essentials, Fox Racing, Fragment, Futura Laboratories, Glo Gang, HELLSTAR, Hidden NY, Holiday, Infinite Archives, Kids of Immigrants, Malbon Golf, Mastermind, Mitchell & Ness, Mowalola, murd333r.fm, New Era Cap, Nike, Oakley, Online Ceramics, PDF Channel, Psychworld, Rick Owens, Satoshi Nakamoto, Saucony, Sp5der, Stash, Thug Club, Undefeated, Vans, Vetements, WWE, Zippo and more.
Also returning is the ComplexCon panel and live talk lineup, which will feature cultural commentators and creatives exploring pop-culture topics. Past discussions have featured Kendrick Lamar, Kobe Bryant, Michael B. Jordan, Lil’ Kim, Issa Rae and Yoon Ambush.
Complex recently acquired the Family Style Food Festival, which will pop up for the first time at ComplexCon 2024. The festival, founded in 2019 by Ben Shenassafar and Bobby Kim of The Hundreds and Miles Canares, is also a like-minded event at the intersection of food and streetwear. It features a lineup of chefs, restaurants, brands and entertainment, serving one-of-a-kind collaborative food and merchandise.
A celebrity golf tournament at Wynn Las Vegas kicks off ComplexCon on Nov. 14. Playboi Carti and Opium will also perform on the ComplexCon Main Music stage, and Metro Boomin will kick it off on Saturday.
VIP and general admission tickets are now available at ComplexCon.com.
A celebratory mood usually prevails on Grammy night. Artists dance to their fellow stars’ rousing performances; epic speeches abound; cameras catch meme-worthy moments. And when it comes to the songs most likely to win trophies, diss tracks aren’t what come to mind.
But this year, there’s Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” — the savage climax of his epic beef this spring with Drake, which despite its barbed bars became an ebullient summer anthem, blaring through car speakers and soundtracking block parties and barbecues. It’s also a contender for song and record of the year nominations — and if it wins on Grammy night, it could well bring that same energy to the evening’s festivities.
Recording Academy president/CEO Harvey Mason Jr. admitted as much in June, a few weeks after the song was released. “It’s a hot record,” he told TMZ. “It’s amazing artistry, great writing. The talent on that record is incredible. And you got artists that have been nominated before, and Kendrick has been successful with the organization, so I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be.”
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A lyrical masterpiece, “Not Like Us” shattered streaming records and became Lamar’s fourth No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. And notwithstanding its severe allegations against Drake (“Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor”), it is indeed Grammy-eligible.
“I think the voting members of the academy appreciate greatness,” Mason added in June. “They appreciate what’s hot, what’s going on. That’s a relevant record that’s impacting on so many levels. So much creativity and talent. I like to believe that the academy members recognize that and vote appropriately.”
If “Not Like Us” earns major nominations, it certainly wouldn’t be without precedent. In 2015, Drake’s “Back to Back,” a diss track aimed at Meek Mill, was nominated for best rap performance (in a now-ironic turn of events, he lost to Lamar’s “Alright”). In 1992, LL COOL J and Kool Moe Dee engaged in a heated battle, with the former emerging victorious after he released “Mama Said Knock You Out” — which then won the Grammy for best rap solo performance.
The Grammys have rewarded artists from outside hip-hop for their subtle (or not-so-subtle) digs, too. In late 2002, Justin Timberlake released his second solo single, “Cry Me a River,” a pointed chronicle of a breakup calling out an ex for cheating, with a music video starring a dead ringer for Timberlake’s own high-profile ex, Britney Spears. (In her 2023 memoir, Spears finally told her side of the story, accusing him of cheating on her multiple times.) At the 2004 ceremony, “Cry Me a River” won Timberlake the Grammy for best male pop vocal performance, edging out veteran competitors like Sting and Michael McDonald.
In some cases, pop smashes that clearly signal their diss intentions in their titles have also garnered Grammy attention. Taylor Swift’s 2014 hit “Bad Blood” — whose remix happened to feature Lamar — was allegedly inspired by her fractured friendship with Katy Perry. The song topped the Hot 100 and won best music video at the 2016 Grammys. Gwen Stefani has said that when Courtney Love called her a “cheerleader” in a 2004 interview, it inspired her classic “Hollaback Girl,” which was then nominated for best female pop vocal performance, though it ultimately lost to Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone.”
While “Not Like Us” proved decisive in Lamar and Drake’s long-winded feud, and seems the likeliest award contender of the four dis tracks he released within one month, sources tell Billboard it might not be the only one to garner Grammy attention: The rap categories may also recognize his “Euphoria.” For Lamar — a 17-time Grammy winner who has had years where he has won multiple awards in one night — it doesn’t seem out of the question. As for Drake — who himself has five Grammys, including for wins where he bested Lamar — the rapper has had a fraught relationship with the awards of late, even famously boycotting the Grammys following The Weeknd’s snub in 2022. And cultural momentum appears to be on Lamar’s side — meaning that come February, Compton could enjoy yet another victory lap.
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
The MOBO Awards has announced its 2025 ceremony will take place in the new location of Newcastle, England. The ceremony – which celebrates Music of Black Origin – will head to the North East for the first time since its founding in 1996. This year’s ceremony was held at the Sheffield Arena and previous events have been held in London, Leeds and Glasgow.
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Next year’s big night will take place on February 18 at Newcastle’s Utilita Arena near the banks of the River Tyne.
The award categories celebrate the best of UK rap, jazz, pop, R&B, soul and, in recent years, have expanded to include alternative and rock acts, alongside electronic performers. The nominees, host and performers for 2025’s ceremony will be announced over the coming months.
“Newcastle is a city steeped in history, culture, and a dynamic sense of community alongside an electric nightlife, making it the perfect host city,” Kanya King CBE, founder/CEO of MOBO Group said in a statement. “We are honoured to bring the MOBO Awards to this iconic destination, eager to deliver a show that will resonate far beyond the North East.”
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The MOBOs also announced the return of the MOBO Fringe events, which will take place around the main ceremony which King said will engage with the “local community to create an inspiring and impactful programme that highlights the significant cultural influence of Black music.”
Kim McGuinness, North East Mayor, added: “I’m thrilled to welcome the MOBO Awards to a new home in our region – just the latest major event putting North East England on the international map for culture. I know the Awards and the MOBO Fringe Festival across venues in Newcastle and Gateshead will be a huge inspiration for a new generation of young and emerging musicians working here in the North East.”
2024’s ceremony was hosted by comedian Babatúnde Aléshé and Love Island star Indiyah Polack. Performers included the Sugababes, Soul II Soul, Ghetts and more, with wins on the night for Little Simz, RAYE, Central Cee, Potter Payper and Stormzy.
50 Cent had some interesting things to say about why he doesn’t rap anymore. During an interview earlier this year with Earn Your Leisure at Invest Fest that’s just now making the rounds on social media, 50 alluded to rap music today being dumbed down. “If you listen to the music that’s out right now, […]
With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to a close, Billboard is spending the next few months counting down our staff picks for the 25 greatest pop stars of the last 25 years. We’ve already named our Honorable Mentions and our No. 25, No. 24, No. 23, No. 22, No. 21, No. 20, No. 19, No. 18, No. 17, No. 16, No. 15 and No. 14 stars, and now we remember the century in Nicki Minaj — a one-of-a-kind crossover rapper who paved a superstar lane entirely her own in the 2010s.
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Whether you know, love or tolerate her as Harajuku Barbie, Roman Zolanski, Chun-Li, Queen Sleeze or Martha (may she rest in peace) — few figures in 21st century popular music and culture (or hip-hop history in general) can compare to the towering impact and immense talent of Nicki Minaj.
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Though she came to passionately rep Southside Jamaica, Queens (and it’s crazy!) after moving there at the age of five, the artist born Onika Tanya Maraj was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in 1982. The eldest daughter of four children, Minaj’s birthplace and stomping grounds immediately situate her at the origins of hip-hop, the endlessly influential artform that sprung out of 1970s New York thanks to the city’s rich combination of African-American, Afro-Caribbean and Latin American cultures. And just as so much of hip-hop has grappled (and continues to grapple) with the American dream and its dueling luster and infeasibility, so has Minaj throughout her career — both inside and outside of her music.
Ironically, these two truths align Minaj with traditional markers of hip-hop authenticity: a label that a significant chunk of the world has perceived her as at odds with for most of her career because of the communities – the girls and the gays – she has elected to cater to within hip-hop spaces. Minaj is arguably the single most fascinating MC of her generation; the combination of her razor-sharp wit, undeniable tenacity, irresistible penchant for the provocative and controversial, and, for better and for worse, her undying charisma have resulted in one of the most singular pop star careers of the 21st century.
Nicki Minaj
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Nicki Minaj
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation
Shortly after honing her acting skills by way of the storied Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Off-Broadway stint, Minaj briefly signed with Brooklyn R&B/hip-hop collective Full Force, through which she rapped as a part of The Hoodstars, a quartet that included her future beau-turned-hypeman-turned-critic, Safaree Samuels. She left the group after five songs – including WWE Diva Victoria’s 2004 entrance song, “Don’t Mess With” — taking to MySpace to begin fine-tuning her approach to social media and the Internet as an artist and get her music to ears of key industry players. One of those players was Dirty Money Entertainment CEO Big Fendi, who signed Minaj to the Brooklyn-based label in 2007, Minaj was signed to a 180-day contract and Fendi fatefully changed her stage name from Nicki Maraj to Nicki Minaj.
On July 5, 2007, Minaj unleashed her debut mixtape, the blistering Playtime Is Over. Playtime arrived three years before Minaj fashioned herself into a life-sized Barbie doll for the Pink Friday album cover, but she was already laying the groundwork for the imagery that would come to anchor her entire career. Minaj’s debut mixtape accompanied her appearance on Dirty Money’s The Come Up street DVD series, in which her swaggering rendition of shit-popping tracks like “40 Bars” caught the attention of Lil Wayne, who later signed her to his Young Money Entertainment imprint.
When Nicki conquered both the Internet and real-life hip-hop conversations with her 2007-09 mixtape run, the generation of female MCs before were effectively silent. For various reasons Lauryn Hill, Lil Kim, Da Brat, Eve, Foxy Brown, Missy Elliott, Amil, Remy Ma, Gangsta Boo and MC Lyte all hadn’t dropped solo studio albums since at least the first half of the ‘00s. Trina and Lil Mama made some chart impact, but otherwise, the latter half of the ‘00s and beginning of the ‘10s were largely bereft of female rappers operating in the genre’s mainstream as soloists in their own right. And here came Nicki Minaj pulling cards on her very first project: “How the f–k you in the game like ten years strong?/ You b–ches still can’t write ya own damn songs.”
Two more mixtapes followed – 2008’s Sucka Free (via Dirty Money/Young Money) and 2009’s Beam Me Up Scotty (via Young Money/Aphilliates) — but it was the latter that truly brought Minaj to the next level of her career. Scotty housed several of her most beloved tracks, including “Itty Bitty Piggy” and “I Get Crazy,” the latter of which marked her Billboard chart debut. The energy surrounding Minaj and Scotty was remarkably palpable; whether you were an NYC kid rapping her lyrics during lunch period or a blog-era disciple collecting her mixtapes online, all eyes were on Nicki Minaj. Through her, a new path forward for rap seemed possible for female artists – and she made it so.
In 2009, Portia Kirkland, then-VP of marketing at Mizay Entertainment (Minaj’s management company at the time) told Billboard, “We’re establishing her online first. Nicki always stays in touch with her fans through Twitter, MySpace and blogging. We didn’t position her as music but as a lifestyle.” It’s that approach to fan engagement, coupled with her undeniable talent, that have allowed Nicki and her Barbz to become one of the most passionate (if occasionally terrifying) artist-fan dynamics in music. Without that foundation, Nicki’s success across genres would be almost unimaginable, but, ultimately, that relationship is paramount to her (somewhat self-mythologized) position as a marquee pop star and general thought leader.
A few months after Scotty’s release, Minaj officially became the First Lady of Young Money, signing an impressive deal with Lil Wayne’s imprint and Universal Motown. The Pink Friday campaign would commence the following year, but not before she earned the first two of her record-breaking career 148 Billboard Hot 100 entries to date thanks to her appearances on Wayne’s “Knockout” and Mariah Carey’s “Up Out My Face.” The Pink Friday era started out a bit shaky, with the Sean Garrett-assisted “Massive Attack,” but paltry commercial returns caused that official lead single spot to go to the Annie Lennox-sampling “Your Love,” which reached No. 14 on the Hot 100.
Before Pink Friday arrived in its entirety on Nov. 22, 2010, Minaj built up her notoriety through a series of knockout guest verses – Trey Songz’s “Bottoms Up,” Usher’s “Lil Freak,” Sean Kingston’s “Letting Go” and a Grammy-nominated turn on Ludacris’ “My Chick Bad” — that established her as the go-to artist to inject a singular mixture of camp and sex appeal on virtually any song. Her verses were unabashedly animated and wholly electrifying; accent switches, a rotating cast of alter egos and slick wordplay proved to be hallmarks of a Nicki Minaj verse – and everyone wanted to prove they could rap a Nicki verse from memory. Throughout her career, Minaj’s brilliance has most consistently shined on her guest verses; something about a limited amount of space and time automatically makes her shift into a higher gear.
This pivotal feature run culminated in her culture-quaking verse on Kanye West’s “Monster,” her first truly iconic pop moment: From the second she commenced her verse, Nicki’s voice carried an undeniable gravity. Her fearless verse was packed with tongue-in-cheek ménage à trois requests and blood-curdling screams, but “$50k for a verse, no album out” was the kind of room-silencing flex that Minaj would continue to back up and build upon for years to come. The “Monster” verse cemented her as not just the next big thing, but also one of the most gifted working MCs.
Pink Friday eventually debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 375,000 copies sold in its first week, coming in behind West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which housed “Monster.” The album later reached the pole position, assisted by a stunning run of singles that included the Hot 100 hits: “Right Thru Me” (No. 26), “Moment for Life” (No. 13, with Drake), “Fly” (No. 19, with Rihanna), “Did It On ‘Em” (No. 49). Reaping a trio of Grammy nods – including best rap album and best new artist – Pink Friday unequivocally stands as a landmark album for 2010s hip-hop. Featuring a glossy blend of rap, pop, dance and R&B, Pink Friday marked a notable departure from the rap-focused trio of mixtapes it succeeded, which naturally courted a controversy that still plagues Minaj’s releases to this day. On her debut, Minaj rapped ferociously and sang earnestly – sometimes in the same song – a combination of skills that, coupled with the sparkly beats of Drew Money, Swizz Beatz, and Pop & Oak, confounded those who encountered her on a vibe closer to The Come Up DVD.
What remains so striking about Pink Friday is that it simultaneously feels like an album made distinctly for Nicki Minaj and album intentionally made for a generation of female rappers that hadn’t yet arrived. “I felt like I had something to prove to everyone who said a female rapper could not make an album unless she was talking about her p—y,” she told Vibe in 2012. “So, I went above and beyond to prove that I could not talk about sex and not talk about my genitalia and still have a successful album. And I proved that.” Interestingly, as much as Pink Friday found Minaj looking out for her future peers (“’Cause before they could begin, you told ’em it was the end/ But I am here to reverse the curse that they live in”), the album also found her twisting the knife in the chest of one of her foremothers, Lil Kim, responding to the Brooklyn rapper’s accusations that she copied her style and image on the fiery Eminem team-up “Roman’s Revenge.”
Nicki’s previous pop crossover attempts had reaped relatively middling returns, but “Super Bass” — originally placed as a Pink Friday deluxe track, before receiving an official single release in 2011 — sent her into the stratosphere. Thanks to its relentlessly sticky hook and an impromptu cover of the song by Taylor Swift during an interview with a Nashville radio station, “Bass” eventually peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 and earned a Diamond certification from the RIAA. Not only did the song help Minaj crash through Top 40’s front doors, it’s also still considered to be one of the greatest pop songs of all time, coming in at No. 13 on Billboard’s list of the 500 Best Pop Songs. From the candy-coated music video and her trademark pink wig to her cheeky choreography and suggestive bars, “Super Bass” was the ultimate culmination of Nicki Minaj as a bonafide pop star and topline rapper, a balancing act she would continue for the next ten years.
“Y’all hate fun,” is a phrase often thrown around in online spaces to laud works that people may enjoy regardless of their quality. With Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, her sophomore studio album, Minaj wasn’t using “fun” as a cop-out, she genuinely just wanted to enjoy herself after executing a seismic hip-hop moment amid her transition to pop music’s upper echelon. In 2012, she told Ryan Seacrest during a call-in interview, “I’ve never had this much fun recording music in my life. My first album I was very guarded. I felt like I was making music to please everyone else. I had to be politically correct, but this album I am just creating music, and there’s such a big difference.”
In that freedom, Minaj sourced her Pink Friday follow-up: a double album that balanced her hip-hop side with her desire to delve deeper into EDM and dance-pop. She traded her Harajuku Barbie aesthetic for neon paint and bikinis galore as she pushed hip-hop further to where the zeitgeist was at the time, nimbly flowing over blaring synth breakdowns and delivering delectable pop hooks to boot. Lead single “Starships” reached No. 5 on the Hot 100, bridging rap and Europop to set the stage for later singles such as “Pound the Alarm” (No. 15) and the deluxe edition’s “Va Va Voom” (No. 22). Minaj’s dance-pop pivot was a critical moment in her career.
Despite what she and Pink Friday did for hip-hop just months prior, her decision to experiment with her sound and further flaunt her versatility was met with haughty dismissal and harsh disrespect by some fans, peers and industry players. Infamously, Hot 97 radio host Peter Rosenberg lambasted “Starships” as “not real hip-hop,” at the station’s annual Summer Jam concert on the day she was scheduled to perform at MetLife Stadium, spurring Minaj to cancel her headlining appearance. Perhaps, Minaj’s experimentation proved too radical for hip-hop – the Barbie aesthetic was one thing, but what were gatekeepers supposed to do with RedOne productions that sounded closer to Calvin Harris than the ricocheting snares of Mike Will Made-It?
As hurtful as the backlash was, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded became Minaj’s first album to debut at No. 1, selling 253,000 copies in its first week. Meanwhile, Minaj collaborated with some pop music’s biggest names – Alicia Keys (“Girl on Fire”), Justin Bieber (“Beauty and a Beat”) and Madonna (“Give Me All Your Luvin’”) — which helped keep her a consistent presence across radio formats as discourse around her own music continued to swirl. That Madonna collaboration brought Minaj all the way to the 2012 Super Bowl halftime show, which aired just one week before the most controversial performance of Minaj’s career to date: At the 2012 Grammys, Minaj performed “Roman Holiday” in a set that found her Roman Zolanski alter-ego overcoming an exorcism attempt. The performance drew the ire of The Catholic League, and years later, Minaj alleged that former Grammy producer Ken Ehrlich blackballed her from ever winning an award at the show because of the performance’s sour reception and her refusal to pull out from the show following his last-minute request to do so. (After 12 career nominations, Minaj still has yet to take home a Grammy.)
Two other songs from Roman Reloaded also helped cement Minaj as an A-list pop star during this era: “Stupid Hoe” and “High School” (with Lil Wayne). The former once again found Minaj hurling jabs at Lil Kim, and its colorful music video broke the Vevo record at time with 4.8 million views in its first 24 hours of release. “High School,” which remains one of Minaj’s most beloved tracks, found her its music video to introduce Myx Moscato, a product in a Minaj co-owned line of alcoholic drinks that she would regularly reference in her verses for years to come, marking her transition from hot new star to budding mogul. In this era, Minaj also reunited with Carey as the two served on the judging panel for a particularly tense season of American Idol and returned to acting with a voice role in Ice Age: Continental Drift, the highest-grossing animated film of 2012.
Like any smart pop star, when Minaj’s back got shoved against the wall, she went back to basics. She kicked off 2014 with what was arguably her most fondly looked upon collection of remixes and guest verses: “Lookin Ass,” YG’s “My N—a,” “Danny Glover” (with Young Thug), “Chi-Raq” (with G-Herbo), “No Flex Zone” (with Rae Sremmurd),” and Young Money’s “Senile,” among others. Those new tracks ushered Minaj into her most dramatic change in fashion and aesthetic yet: For the red carpets celebrating the release of Nick Cassavetes’ rom-com The Other Woman, her live-action feature film debut, Minaj hung up the heavy makeup and zany colored wigs of her past two eras and instead opted for a strikingly natural look. Her highly lauded new looks set the stage for The Pinkprint, her remarkably personal third studio album.
Led by the somber, revelatory “Pills N Potions,” The Pinkprint marked a moment of significant maturation for Minaj. She spent the record working through family trauma (“All Things Go”) and detailing the most harrowing parts of failed relationships (“I Lied”; “The Crying Game”), while also finding time to rep her heritage (“Trini Dem Girls,” “Four Door Aventador”). The sprawling set reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200, shifting 244,000 album units in its first week, while also spawning additional top 40 hits like the Drake/Wayne link-ups “Only” (No. 12, with Chris Brown) and “Truffle Butter” (No. 14), and “The Night Is Still Young” (No. 31) — one of her few post-Roman Reloaded solo dance-pop tracks.
But the biggest hit from the album was easily “Anaconda” — which, between its iconic music video, cover art and outro, remains one of the most remembered tracks of both The Pinkprint and Minaj’s career in general. Her flip of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” forced open a Pandora’s box of discourse regarding body politics, Black feminism, and white women and victimhood as it relates to Taylor Swift centering herself in Minaj’s questioning of why her wildly successful music video was passed over for top honors at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Of course, Swift was instrumental in helping “Super Bass” cross over to pop audiences back in 2010, so the duo’s kerfuffle was nothing that a joint performance opening that year’s VMAs couldn’t fix. 2014 also found Minaj joining forces with Beyoncé and Ariana Grande — the two hottest non-Swift pop stars of the year – both as guests on her own album, then as co-stars on the former’s world-stopping “Flawless” remix and the latter’s “Bang Bang” (along with Jessie J).
Between dominating the summer with “Anaconda” and “Bang Bang” and closing out the year with The Pinkprint, 2014 was a winning year for Minaj. That success continued into the following year with the release of Barbershop: The Next Cut, another live-action film that helped insert Minaj into both the legacy of the beloved film series and the lineage of rappers-turned-actors like her co-stars Eve, Ice Cube and Common. Although The Pinkprint lost all four of its Grammy nods, the album did wonders for those who were still seeking a solid, authentic album from Minaj – and it even previewed where she was headed in her love life (peep those two Meek Mill collabs).
Nicki Minaj
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Nicki Minaj
Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic
After The Pinkprint, something shifted. With three successful albums and two proper world tours under her belt, Minaj was no longer a bright-eyed new star. She was now lounging on the throne in the house she built, but there were quite a few new and veteran female rappers looking to get some skin in the game. Minaj’s worst trials would come in 2017. After kicking off the year announcing her split from Meek Mill – who she later accused of physical violence against women, including herself, in 2020 – Minaj received a little gift by the name of “Shether.”
Named in reference to “Ether,” Nas’ legendary 2001 diss track, “Shether” was a scathing seven-minute diss towards Nicki Minaj from Bronx rapper Remy Ma. The pair’s beef dates back to 2010, but “Shether” quickly transcended their specific shared history. Through “Shether,” anyone who didn’t like Minaj – or was just plain tired of her dominance – was granted both an avenue to exercise that hate and a rival artist to support in spite of her. The well-received “Shether” was the first diss track to truly put a dent in Minaj’s armor: Although she did respond through “No Frauds,” Nicki survived the lashings mostly by continuing to churn out hits.
But not even a force of nature could thwart the clearly changing tides of the industry: “Shether” dropped just three and a half months before Cardi B’s Hot 100-topping “Bodak Yellow.” With Cardi’s rise soon giving way to a new class of rising female emcees and Remy’s diss still permeating the wider culture and painting Minaj as a fraud and laughingstock, the Head Barb found herself in a wildly different position from the lane she had cultivated for the past decade. 2017 also marked the first time in seven years that Minaj didn’t win best female hip-hop artist at the BET Awards (Remy won). The foundation of Minaj’s world had shifted significantly.
She kicked off 2018 with another breakup – this time with fellow Queens icon Nas – and quickly turned her attention to rolling out Queen, her fourth studio album. Lead single “Chun-Li” (No. 10) became her first solo Hot 100 top 10 hit since “Anaconda” and previewed an album that would inject Minaj’s hip-hop foundation with notes of trap, pop, R&B and dancehall. Although she put out dual lead singles and a handful of pre-release tracks, Queen felt like the first Nicki Minaj era where everything but the music was at the center of attention. She launched Queen Radio on Apple Music to coincide with the album drop, but the stop-start nature of the release gave way to attention-grabbing rants that would quickly become a defining characteristic of the radio show – and Minaj’s general late ‘10s and early ‘20s online presence.
Queen opened at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, falling behind the second week of Travis Scott’s Astroworld. Naturally, an album that bears an honorific as its title missing the top spot and earning a smaller debut than Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy (2018) was far from ideal – and Minaj spent the following weeks casting blame on everyone from her record label to Billboard, streaming services, Travis Scott, Irving Azoff and even Stormi Webster. It also didn’t help that – outside of “Chun-Li” — Queen failed to generate any real hits of its own. In fact, the biggest hit of this Nicki era is technically “FEFE,” a Murda Beatz-produced collaboration with embattled rapper 6ix9ine that peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 and was tacked onto the album’s deluxe edition. Couple that with Future dropping out of his planned co-headlining tour with Nicki – he was later replaced by Juice WRLD — and the Queen era was easily Nicki’s messiest yet. Did we mention that Fashion Week altercation with Cardi?
It would take another half-decade for Minaj’s next studio album to arrive, and in the interim she rode out the most confounding period of her career yet. 2019 brought her massive records like “Tusa” (with Karol G) and smart remixes like “Welcome to the Party” (with Pop Smoke), but her link-up with Megan Thee Stallion on that year’s “Hot Girl Summer” proved to have a quite mind-boggling snowball effect. Just like “MotorSport,” her 2017 collaboration with Cardi B and Migos, “Summer” was the latest example of a Minaj collaboration with a younger female rapper ending with the two at odds.
While Bardi and Minaj have still yet to spar on record, the events of the “Hot Girl Summer” music video shoot – Minaj alleges that Thee Stallion tried to force her to drink while she was trying to get pregnant — later gave way to 2024’s “Big Foot,” a poorly received response to Megan’s Hot 100-topping “Hiss.” In “Hiss,” Megan rapped, “These hoes don’t be mad at Megan, these hoes mad at Megan’s Law,” a bar many perceived to be a shot at Minaj, whose husband, Kenneth Petty, is a registered sex offender. Though it was a general shot that could be directed to a number of Thee Stallion’s adversaries, most minds went to Nicki because of her history of aligning herself with alleged abusers and predators – one of the darkest and most troubling throughlines of her career.
Though 2020 might have been the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, for Nicki, it mainly marked a return to commercial triumph. She earned her first two Hot 100 chart-toppers: “Say So” (with Doja Cat), the first collaboration between two female rappers to top the chart, and “Trollz” (with 6ix9ine). In 2021, she re-released Beam Me Up Scotty to streaming services, earning a No. 2 Billboard 200 peak for the decade-old mixtape in the process.
By the time 2022 rolled around, Minaj seemed to swing the pendulum back in her favor, earning her first unaccompanied Hot 100 No. 1 with the Rick James-sampling “Super Freaky Girl.” The viral track repurposed the “Anaconda” formula and gifted Minaj her biggest crossover hit in years, which then gave way to her earning the Video Vanguard and best hip-hop awards at a victory-lapping 2022 VMAs. “Super Freaky Girl” was also the center of another brouhaha between Minaj and a younger female MC: This time, she sounded off about “Super” being placed in the pop field instead of the rap field at the 2023 Grammys. On Instagram Live – which she frequently uses along with Stationhead to corral her fan army and speak her mind – Minaj argued that both her song and Latto’s “Big Energy” should compete in the pop field because they have the same producer (Dr. Luke, another Minaj collaborator with troubling sexual assault allegations – he countersued and the two later settled out of court).
“Super Freaky Girl” would go on to serve as the de facto lead single for Pink Friday 2, but not before Minaj began 2023 with a remix of Ice Spice’s “Princess Diana,” which served as the first release on Heavy On It Records, an imprint she launched through a venture with Republic Records that year, and reached No. 4 on the Hot 100. She and Ice would later reunite on the No. 7-peaking “Barbie World” (with AQUA) — the two-time Grammy-nominated track from Barbie the Album – before their relationship turned icy. On December 8, 2023, Minaj released Pink Friday 2, an official sequel to her 2010 debut that combined hip-hop with Afrobeats, Jersey club, dancehall and pop. The LP became her record-breaking third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, earning over 228,000 album equivalent units in its first week. Over half of the album charted on the Hot 100, including the singles “Red Ruby Da Sleeze” (No. 13), “Last Time I Saw You” (No. 23), “Everybody” (No. 24, with Lil Uzi Vert) and “FTCU” (No. 15). Received warmly by critics and fans alike, Pink Friday 2 mined nostalgia to handsome returns, culminating in the highest-grossing concert tour by a female rapper of all time with the Pink Friday 2 World Tour.
For Minaj, 2024 has been marked by the continuation of her Pink Friday 2 trek and the creation of the forthcoming next installment in her Pink Friday album series. With a career that spans two decades across the hip-hop underground and pop’s apex alike, Nicki Minaj has been the ultimate victor, villain and survivor of 21st century pop music and culture – sometimes all at the same time. Her allegiance to alleged predators and abusers, embrace of problematic conspiracy theories and weaponization of her and her fans’ parasocial relationships are all truths that are unerasable from Minaj’s legacy. A provocateur in the truest sense, Minaj knows what buttons to press and she’s always ready to Hulk smash them – she’s fearless in that way. But it’s her seeming fear of being replaced and cast aside that keeps her demanding the spotlight like any great pop star; watching her grapple with that battle is a priceless front-row seat to the madhouse that is 21st century fame.
Nicki Minaj isn’t just the greatest female rapper to ever do it and one of the greatest pop stars of this century, she’s also one of the key architects of how pop music sounds, how pop fandom functions and how pop stars are perceived both online and in real life in 2024. Now that’s some single-handed annihilation, word to “Itty Bitty Piggy.”
Read more about the Greatest Pop Stars of the 21st Century here — and be sure to check back on Thursday when our No. 12 artist is revealed!
DaBaby has settled a civil lawsuit over a 2020 incident in which he allegedly attacked a property manager during a music video shoot at a Los Angeles mansion, two months after he took a plea deal to avoid jail time over the episode.
The rapper (Jonathan Lyndale Kirk) was set to face a November trial in the case, in which Gary Pagar claims that DaBaby and others “beat, punched, spat on, threatened, shoved, and robbed” him after he confronted them for breaking rental rules at his Hollywood Hills mansion.
But in a court filing last week (Sept. 25) in Los Angeles Superior Court, attorneys for both Pagar and DaBaby said they had “reached a global settlement of this entire action.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed in public filings, and neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
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In addition to Pagar’s civil lawsuit, DaBaby was also initially charged with felony battery over the incident. But in July, he pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor battery charge and agreed to pay $10,000 restitution in a deal with prosecutors that allowed him to avoid prison time.
Pagar sued in February 2021, accusing DaBaby and others of fraud, breach of contract, battery and other wrongdoing. He claimed that the rapper and his associates had rented the house for “a private vacation with no more than nine people,” and swore to him that there would be “no crowds, no parties, and no filming.”
“In fact, the purpose of defendants’ trip to Los Angeles was to gather 40 people and a commercial film crew at Mr. Pagar’s house to film a music video,” his lawyers wrote at the time. “When Mr. Pagar asked them to stop, they beat and battered him, stole his phone by force so he couldn’t call the police, and threatened him. Then they vandalized his house and left, after stealing various valuable items.”
When DaBaby was criminally charged by Los Angeles prosecutors over the same alleged incident in April 2022, he released purported footage that appeared to show Pagar using a racial epithet during the encounter. He accused Pagar of lying to law enforcement and the media “not knowing that he’s caught on camera.”
Across more than three years of litigation, Pagar’s civil case moved slowly. Last summer, attorneys for DaBaby asked to delay the proceedings so that the rapper would not be forced to testify in ways that would “potentially incriminate him in the parallel criminal case.” Then earlier this year, DaBaby again moved to delay the case, citing scheduling conflicts for his lawyers.
Before the settlement, a trial had been scheduled to start November 11.
As reported by Rolling Stone, DaBaby pleaded guilty to a single count of misdemeanor battery at a July 11 court hearing, agreeing to pay restitution and serve one year of probation. At the hearing, prosecutors told the judge they had agreed to drop the felony charge because they foresaw to “problems of proof of proving serious bodily injury at trial.”