Ebro Darden Drops New Nicki Minaj Interview on Apple Music

The Queen of Gag City, Nicki Minaj, joins Ebro Darden live in-studio in New York City for an in-depth conversation discussing all things “Pink Friday 2.” The episode aired today, on Apple Music 1.

The no-holds-barred conversation is wide ranging with Minaj revealing when she heard the news of her father’s passing and how that influenced PF2′s first track, “Are You Gone Already.”

The interview explores how Nicki ended up working with J. Cole for the first time, why her feature with Drake, “Needle,” ended up on her album instead of “For All The Dogs,” whether she feels loved and appreciated by the Hip-Hop community, and much more.

Additionally, Nicki Minaj touches on how scary it was for her to get so personal on this project, her upcoming tour including international destinations, and how producer ATL Jacob was the key to unlocking the album.

Nicki Minaj Talks To Apple Music About Hearing The News of Her Father’s Passing And How That Influenced The First Track On Pink Friday 2…

The first verse. The thing why it’s confusing a little bit is because my documentary was originally going to be out with the music, but because the music wasn’t out, I didn’t want to put the documentary out. It’s a great documentary. But anyway, because [it wasn’t out], people are a little bit lost, because they don’t have any context. So I’m going to make it quick. The first verse was me talking to… “You never got to meet Papa.” Okay, it’s me speaking to my father.

My father had just passed. So right after I had the baby, and it was during Corona, and nobody knew what was going on, so, one day, I was rocking the baby and I don’t normally have the phone on me when I’m rocking him. Because at that time, I was mad strict like, “Oh, that [radiation] is going to get in my child, don’t put the phone by my child.” So normally, I wouldn’t have it.

But that day, as I’m rocking him, the phone rings, and I see it’s my father. I normally would not have picked up, because I don’t like to be on the phone with the baby there. I would’ve called him back. Something said, “Pick up the phone.” I picked up, he was very happy, and he was like, “Baby, I could come on Monday” Because he had been waiting to be able to come to Cali to help me. I kept on saying, “Come on out.” He wasn’t really happy, but I knew that, when he came be with us, we were going to be happy.

He is this amazing, great person, who livens up the whole house. I was like, “Yes, we were going to get help.” And then, we went to bed, and sometime late, while we were all asleep, the phone rang. And it was my mother, telling me that my father was in an accident and that she didn’t know what was going to happen, and she would call me back. And then, everything started spinning, literally, because now, also, I just had my baby. After I had my baby was the first time in my life that I ever fainted. I never knew what it felt like to faint, but I’m already hypersensitive with everything. So to get that call, and it’s the exact replica of a call, I had in about four or five dreams, but it was the exact replica of one particular dream I had about this.

[In the dream] the person was saying, “Such and such, your mom, we’re going to call you back and let you know how it went.” But this call now is with my father. And I’m like, “Wait a minute. I dreamt this.” But I remembered, in the dream, I didn’t get the call back. I didn’t remember how it ended. So I called my pastor and we started praying. But two nights before that, I had already texted three, four people, because it was including my mother. And I said, “Something bad is happening, and everybody needs to pray.”

But anyway, because I knew the two days before, I saw all this blood coming out of someone’s head laying on the floor, but the person was conscious, they were scared, but it was just pouring out in the hair. And I’m like thinking, “Whatever, whatever.” I sent that text to everybody like, “This is crazy.”

And then, two nights later, this happened. So I opened the album with saying, “You never got to meet papa. He sweet proper, he keep Mama on my toes.” What else I said? “You never got to meet Papa.” So I call my son Papa Bear. So I’m telling my father, “You never got to meet Papa.” And then, I begin to explain the time from my mother first calling me, telling me he was in an accident, to her calling me, telling me that he didn’t make it. So I’m like, “The waiting, the pacing, the raving.” And at the end, “I just believed you’d awaken, a memory in the making. Call me. Won’t you call me? Are you gone already?” Because I couldn’t believe so fast from accident on.

A few hours earlier. He was the happiest that I had heard him in a long time. But anyway, but what was interesting, why I said, ” Are you gone already?” is because I knew he was gone already. Because while we were praying, the prayer changed to not like being “Help him or duh, duh, duh.” The way the pastor just started speaking him was like calling him back.

Nicki Minaj Talks To Apple Music About The Second Verse Of “Are You Gone Already”…

The second verse is, because on my first Pink Friday, I had a song called “Dear Old Nicki”, “Dear Old Nicki,” because everybody always would be like, “Old Nicki this. Old Nicki that. Miss old Nicki. Mixtape Nicki.” So I had did a song called “Dear Old Nicki,” talking about the mainstream Nicki and Mixtape Nicki, basically apologizing to the old Nicki for not being able to bring her along to mainstream life. So my fans always asked me to do a sequel to that. So the second verse is basically “Dear Old Nicki” Part Two. That’s why I said, “Dear Onika,” because I started doing research on getting in touch with your inner child, healing your inner child, and all that stuff. So I’m now starting the second verse saying, “Dear Onika, don’t stress, you’re blessed. Today is 12/3/23,” which is the actual date I wrote that second verse, because I was too emotional to even listen to the freaking first words to write it. So it sat for months.

So I said, “Today is 12/3/23. Your baby’s three, he’s the best, Onika.” And then, when I start saying, “Set me, set me, set me free,” I’m talking as the inner child, “Set me, set me, set me free,” and then, I speak back. But the last line is what confused a lot of people, because I said, “You’ve already made your peace with me. One day, you have to forgive Mommy. But she knows you know too much already.”

I’m talking about my own mother. So the inner child is like, “Don’t come over here telling you, “Well, we good. We made peace.” But you still have to forgive Mommy.” And then, I tell her, “But you knows she knows you know too much already,” because I remember as a kid, I knew way too much. I saw way too much. And then, what happens is, I don’t know what your relationship is like with your parents, Ebro, but a lot of times, what happens is that we grow up in a situation where our parents don’t take accountability and they don’t realise that that’s not okay. Because you can’t actually have a healthy relationship without accountability. There’s no relationship on earth that works without accountability.

Nicki Minaj Tells Apple Music How Scary It Was For Her To Get So Personal on The On The Record And Share Her Emotions With Listeners…

So scary. I think a lot, to be honest, I always feel like I have to give my fans, my core fans, an update when I come back out with an album. And I think the last two took a lot longer, because of the events that took place between the albums. And every time I’m about to put out an album, I have to reconcile in my head the gain, the pros and the cons of sharing this, and “Why am I sharing this? And how is it going to make me feel? Am I going to be able to listen to this back for the rest of my life?”

But I always feel I have to start somehow by telling them what has been going on, so that they have a perspective. Because they don’t. A lot of times, they’re just assuming what… They think I just sit in the house all day and just have, I don’t know, maids and nannies and butlers and shit. You understand? Most people think that. They don’t think of me as a human being. And so, with my fans, because I have a very different relationship with them and they really do know me, I give them an update. And then, they get to be like, “Oh, okay, okay, well, duh, duh, duh, duh.” They can put some things together.

Nicki Minaj Tells Apple Music About Having Drake On ‘Pink Friday 2’ And Whether She Was Supposed To Be On Drake’s Album ‘For All The Dogs’…

Well, he told the fans at his tour that I was going to be able on his album. And actually the song he was talking about was “Needle.” But he ended up feeling like sonically it didn’t match For All The Dogs. And I, from day one felt like it matched Pink Friday 2. But even before that, so long ago, I remember joking with Juice and I think my homeboys, I was like, yo, maybe you know what? You never know. Maybe something happens and it’ll get to be on my album. And this was probably almost a year ago. I first heard that song in Trinidad when I was in Trinidad for Carnival, so that was in February. And as soon as I heard it, I played it like Glam. We were there doing everything, so they heard it too. Everybody loved it and I wanted it for my album. So it was just God’s timing. He said, he asked me did I want it for my album. I was like, absolutely. So the fans were mad thinking that-but. He didn’t tell them that there was a change.

And I didn’t either. But yeah, I mean, you know what? It worked out for the best. He did also send me another song, but I wanted our next song to be just Dricki, me and him. And that is what “Needle” is. And it just makes, “Needle” is just the perfect Drake and Nicki song.

Nicki Minaj Talks To Apple Music About Change And How She Responded To Drake Sending Her “Seeing Green”…

[The game’s] changed. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with change. There’s nothing wrong with change, as long as, in my opinion, and it’s just my opinion and nobody has to agree with it, it is one opinion, I think, as long as people who are supposed to keep sh*t real keep sh*t real, then the circle of life keeps going. But what happened was somewhere along the line, mother*ckers stopped doing that, hyping up wackness, hyping up weakness, hyping up whack sh*t, male and female. And that’s what happened. And then, when I speak on it, I look like… No, y’all just don’t want to hear the truth, because y’all know y’all don’t really belong. Because a rapper that belong rises to the challenge.

You know what I’m saying? I was having so much writer’s block and dealing with being a mom and losing my father and losing a couple other people that were really close to me. But when Drake sent me “Seeing Green,” even though I went down in my studio three different times, I got it done. I pushed myself to be better. I was mad at myself for being… I’m like, “Am I late? What is wrong? What’s happening?” But I know one thing, I knew I was going to send him back a mother*cking verse he was going to mother*cking love. That’s what it is, sacrifice too about, it’s your passion. The f*cking best basketball player in the world, the best boxer in the world, they sacrifice. Why? Because they want to be the best. So why is it, in music, there’s no trade anymore?

Nicki Minaj Tells Apple Music How She Ended Up Working With J. Cole…

Okay. So as soon as I heard the beats, it was towards, like I said, the end of the album when ATL Jacob was bringing in these things. And I was kind of just making up the hooks and stuff from scratch. And so it started getting more personal then. And I had this very personal verse on there. We thought about him. J. Cole is somebody that my fans had been asking me to work with for 10 years. And he and I think are both probably antisocial. So the chances of running into either one of us are slim. And so we just never had a communication anyway. But this time, because he had been active, he just started coming out, I could tell, oh, he in work mode. You know what I’m saying?

And just really shining and having this glow. And I was like, you know what? Let’s hit him up and see. And he came to the studio in Malibu. And I said, “I want to play your song. I want one condition.” And he said, “What?” I said, “You have to listen in the headphones first before the big speakers.” And he said, “Okay.” I put my headphones, I gave it to him, and he was just bopping, bopping. I could tell he was feeling it. And he was like, “This is really personal. I almost feel like I shouldn’t be hearing it.” I said, “Oh, oh, I understand. It’s okay.” He was like, “No, that’s dope. I love that.” And I was like, “Oh, okay.” In my head I was like, oh my God. Yikes. But I was very busy and he was very busy. And he was saying that he was about to be travelling, and I was saying, I have to turn it into this album. So I didn’t think we were going to have a lot of time to talk or to vibe.

So he had said, “You know what? If I’m feeling it, I’ll do it as soon as I get there. I’ll do it on the spot.” So he was like, “You know what? Let me take it with me.” So I figured that meant that he wasn’t feeling it and he wasn’t going to do it. So I was just like, okay. And then two days later… Oh, I forgot the most important thing. After I played him that song, I played him “FTCU.” I was like, “Yo, I don’t like playing my music, but I’ll let you hear another song.” So I played him that. And when that second verse came in, his reaction is why that song is so high. Because Drake had originally loved that song. While he was working on his album, he was thinking about if that could fit for his album as well. Because I sent it to him when I did it, because I loved the beat. But I wasn’t sure about the chorus. So then when J. Cole was listening to it and he was bopping, and then the, “High heels on… ” When that dude was saying goodbye and that sh*t dropped. If you would’ve seen him, it was the dopest f*cking thing. Because he was just like… Then he looked at me and he said, “I’ve never heard anything like that before. I’ve never heard that before.” When you think about it, what haven’t you heard before? It’s simple words, but what struck me as so f*cking dope was that he couldn’t articulate. He was just like, “I never heard that before. I ain’t never.” But that’s what made me go, oh, this is something that I should just leave the alone. And you know what I said to him? I said, “Yeah, I like the song. I know I bodied verse and I know the beat is hard and f*ck and… ” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah.” I was like, “But I don’t like the chorus.” I was like, “Because you wouldn’t be able to play it on radio.” He was like, “Who cares? He was like, “Man, f*ck the radio.”

And it dawned on me, this is not something I’m putting out to be as a single. This is something as a part of a body of work. And I didn’t even want to put out singles. I purposely don’t have videos out because I want y’all to listen to the music. Listen.

So I let him, but then he wanted to know a little bit more about what he had heard on the, we just started talking about the verse. And so we spoke briefly and then two days later when he sent me back that verse, I was like, what the hell? Because I felt like it was, I had sat down on the couch with a therapist and then they put everything in the song. And I kind of felt like a little bit violated like, boy.

And I’m so appreciative of him and also his aura, his aura.

Oh, so, so, so good. So, so, so good. Leaves back a good aura. You know what I’m saying? That’s dope. And he never struck me as a person that I would ever have a conversation with, far less a whole song with that I love on my album. But here we are.

Nicki Minaj Tells Apple Music About Whether She Feels Loved And Appreciated By The Hip-Hop Community…

Ebro: But you know you’re loved, right? You know you’re appreciated and loved. Do you know that?

Nicki Minaj: By my fans, abso-f*cking-lutely, yeah.

Ebro: But just by hip hop in general, do you think that?

Nicki Minaj: I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Ebro: I have never met a person has fixed their lips to say, “Nicki’s not dope.” People might be like, I don’t personally listen to her albums, but they know skill wise. And is that for you, as someone who came up in this game and fought to have respect right next to the dudes, the only woman that’s ever been on a record with Hov and Ye and Em and F*cking Carey, right? I think that’s what has always mattered to you the most.

Nicki Minaj: Always. Always has. Always has mattered to me that, whether you knew how I look, whether you knew where I was from, whether you knew if I was a male, female, whatever, all that mattered to me was that, “Are they liking my raps?” And somewhere along the line, that shifted, and it’s everyone’s fault, as a whole, as our culture. It’s insane to go backwards. And I’m keeping it a thousand, because when I think about the people who inspired me, I can still pull from them right now. That’s why Biggie, rest in peace, he seems to always make his way on my projects. And I didn’t even realize that.

You know what I’m saying? So thank God I had those kinds of people that, right now, I can still pull inspiration from them, when I don’t have anything to pull from, whether it’s Biggie, whether it’s Jay, whether it’s Foxy, whether it’s Wayne, whether it’s Lauryn Hill, because they were so great, that I don’t care about any of Biggie Smalls’ videos or Lauryn Hill’s videos. I care about the music. When I was riding on the trains to school, I had my CD player and my headphones. I didn’t give a shit about what any of them looked like. And it kind of has become a little whatever.

Nicki Minaj Tells Apple Music About Her Current Process For Making Songs And Her Label…

I don’t use the laptop no more, and I stopped… Well, I don’t think I used to do this at that time, when I was with the laptop. I started doing more just laying a reference. To get the melody and my voice and all that other stuff down first, because I have a lot of different things that…[Voice changes and inflections].

Right. So I started doing that first now. So mostly, it’s me and my engineer, Juice. He engineered “Super Bass,” because he was working with Ester Dean at the time. And then, like a year or two later, he became my engineer, and he’s been my engineer since. He’s amazing. I love him. But it’s usually just me and him in the studio. Well, do you know the person Tate Kobang on the song with Lil Wayne “RNB”? He signed to my label, and he’s very, very talented.

And in fact, he brought that song [talking about “RNB”] to me. So when that song came, that hook was already on it.

Yes. He had a hook and a verse on it, and I’m like, “Oh, I love this.” And we’ll actually still put out the extended version. I don’t want to talk too long. But anyway, so there have been two people, key people, I think, new to this album, that I haven’t worked with like that before. And Tate is the person that also, he sent me that movie. And however, listen to when the magic really shifted is when I got back to the drawing board of just getting the beat. I don’t want to hear your chorus. I don’t want to hear you rapping on anything you send me. In fact, a couple of years ago I stopped even listening to things that people would send me with them rapping on it because I’m like, are you auditioning for a feature or are you sending something for my album? A beat, a hook, you understand?

And then they would be paying so much attention to their rap, there would be no hook, so there would be no song. So I had to explain to certain people that would want to work with me like “Hook, where’s the hook? Okay, bye.” But what I went back to is just going back to the beat and making up whatever I wanted to make up.

Nicki Minaj Talks To Apple Music About Her Upcoming Tour…

Nicki Minaj: [I havent’ been on tour in…] A while. A long time. Over five years.

Ebro: So you get to go see it and this is worldwide. I mean, you’ve given us I think domestic dates so far, right?

Nicki Minaj: Domestic and Europe.

Ebro: There’s some Europe in there.

Nicki Minaj: Yeah, there’s some Europe in there so far.

Ebro: Anything for South America, Australia, Japan?

Nicki Minaj: Oh, we always end up going to Australia. Normally end up going to Japan as well. Well, I went to Japan, my first go-around. I loved Japan.

Ebro: Japan’s incredible.

Nicki Minaj: I like the Harajuku Girls and all that, but yes, we would like this time to expand it as much as possible. And we did do… We normally do Australia, so that’s a given. But I do want to definitely do South America because they always hitting me up.

Check Out The New Interview!