Nicki Minaj Biography

Onika minaj (Born in Trinidad on December 8, 1984 and migrated to the US at the age of 5), Known as Nicki Minaj, is a female rapper from Southside Jamaica,Queens, NewYork. She grew up in a troubled home, with a father on drugs and a struggling single mother. Despite her hectic environment, Minaj went on to graduate from La-Guardia High School in Manhattan where she studied singing and acting.

Working as an administrative assistant, she dedicated all of her free time to persuing a potential music career.Nicki Minaj started off singing, from background vocals, to hooks for lokal rappers. Minaj wanted to "stand out" more, from the average dime-a-dozen, young aspiring singers and began writing raps. Starting out as the lone female in a group, (which she left in 2006)

Nicki soon branched out and was noticed on Myspace by Dirty Money CEO Fendi, who signed her and put her on the front of his Dirty Money Label, and his The Coe Up DVD.

Appearing in The Carter Edition of the DVD series, Minaj was noticed by rapper Lil'Wayne, who immediately called Fendi to negotiate a meeting with Nicki. He was convinced not only by her different style of rapping but also her ability to full-on write her own material, that she was perfect to be the face of his Young Money label. The two collaborated on mixtape-styled remakes of tracks such as "Sunshine", "Big Spender," and, more recently, a song titled "Higher than a kite" which uses T.I.'s "My Swag" beat. In April on 2007, she released her first mixtaped, titled Playtime is Over, where she posed as a Barbie doll on the cover. Lil'Wayne appeared on the track "Can't Stop, Won't Stop."

Nearly a year later, Minaj released her second mixed CD, titled Sucka free. Controversy surrounded this as Nicki paid tribute to rapper Lil' Kim by posing with her legs spread for promotial posters. She describes it as something to "pull people in," so that they would listen to what she had to say. Nicki Minaj graced the pages of the July isuue of XXL magazine, giving a brief overview of her life up to that point in time.

Originally using her real last name Maraj, Nicki boasts she started calling herself Minaj because she started "eating chicks," with her vicious rap skills. Its pronounced as "menage," only spelled to compliment her real last name with a 'J' instead of traditional spelling.

Aside from her original Onika, Minaj also uses an array of aliases to describe herself, such as; "Nicki Lewenski," and "Sit on Your favorite rapper's face."