Feuds with Taylor Swift, Covid rows and now a drugs arrest – inside the unpredictable world of Nicki Minaj

The Manchester concert no-show is part of US rapper’s life of intense chaos

This weekend, pop star Nicki Minaj appeared before an adoring crowd in Manchester. They screamed her name, waved their arms and snapped a zillion photographs. Unfortunately for the 23,500 fans expecting her to headline the city on Saturday night, the venue was not stadium, but the front of the city’s Stock Exchange Hotel. And it was not a concert but an apologetic 2am meet-and-greet with her die-hard devotees, the so-called “Barbz”.

Earlier on Saturday, Minaj was arrested in Amsterdam for allegedly trying to take drugs through the airport. Because of the delay, she missed her sold-out gig at the Co-op Live – the latest misfortune to befall an arena that has lurched from setback to setback in the run-up to its launch earlier in the month (including the cancellation of two performances by Olivia Rodrigo).

Having finally made it to the UK, Minaj emerged from her hotel in the small hours to pose for photos and praise her fanbase for sticking by her. Though most had been at Co-op Live when it was announced at 9.30pm that she would not be appearing on stage, they didn’t seem especially annoyed. Quite the opposite. To merely breathe the same air as Minaj was more than sufficient compensation.

The drama surrounding Minaj’s Coop no-show would be lethal to the careers of most A-list entertainers. With Minaj, it’s all part of the experience. Born in Trinidad and Tobago and largely raised in Queens, New York, she is one of her generation’s most searing rappers and singers. She’s also one of the most unpredictable, dogged by controversy wherever she goes.

Minaj, whose hits include Anaconda and Super Bass, played Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome on Thursday. She was due to fly to Manchester on Saturday but was detained at Schiphol Airport. She will have to pay a fine for “illegally exporting soft drugs from the Netherlands to another country,” Dutch police said.

The singer kept her audience updated as the story unfolded. “They’re trying to keep me from MANCHESTER,” Minaj told her social media followers. In another post, she appeared to suggest authorities had planted something in her luggage. In another post, she claimed: “They’ve been trying everything they possibly can to TRY to stop this tour.” “This is Amsterdam btw [by the way], where weed is legal,” she said in a later post.

Artists often mellow with age. But at 41, Minaj remains thoroughly larger-than-life. She’s only just emerged from a complicated feud with another American female rapper, Megan Thee Stallion, which involved the two swapping insults via “diss tracks” − songs recorded explicitly to insult a rival.

Such controversies are nothing new. Three years ago, Minaj was in the headlines after refusing to attend the Met Gala because of the requirement that all guests be vaccinated against Covid.

Minaj refused to take the jab, claiming a cousin in Trinidad had been rendered impotent by the vaccine − an assertion debunked by experts.

Fame can do strange things to people. Minaj, however, has always been a forceful presence. Before her 2010 breakthrough album, Pink Friday, she claimed to have been fired three times by the Red Lobster restaurant chain for insulting guests.

“I worked at Red Lobster… and I chased a customer out of the restaurant once so I could stick my middle finger up at her and demand that she give me my pen back,” she told Billboard. “I swear to God I was bad.”

The “Barbz” have generally stuck by Minaj. To them, her wrecking ball persona is part of the appeal − and is undoubtedly a driving force in songs renowned for their explicit lyrics and no-prisoners-taking punch (“I get what I desire, it’s my empire,” she declared on Pink Friday).

Still, her refusal to tread softly has not always endeared her to the music industry. Megan Thee Stallion wasn’t the first to experience a Minaj bodyslam. At various times, she has feuded with Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Lil Kim and Demi Lovato − the rows often erupting over misunderstandings, tweets taken the wrong way or Minaj’s feeling that, as a woman of colour, the US entertainment industry and awards such as the Grammys are loaded against her.

She also weathered criticism over her marriage to Kenneth Petty, a registered sex offender convicted of first-degree attempted rape in 1994 when he was a teenager and later jailed for first-degree manslaughter for shooting a man in 2002.

“He was 15, she was 16... in a relationship,” Minaj wrote of the rape conviction on Instagram. “But go awf, internet. y’all can’t run my life. Y’all can’t even run y’all own life. Thank you boo.”

Minaj grew up in tough circumstances. Born Onika Tanya Maraj, she was largely raised by her grandmother in Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain, until the age of five, after her parents went to New York to start a new life.

She later joined them in the US but had a difficult childhood as the daughter of a father who was an alcoholic and crack cocaine addict.

“When he was on crack, he was more peaceful, and when he would drink, he became loud and violent,” she would say.

Minaj saw music as her way out. “I had tunnel f**king vision,” is how she chartered her state of mind when she was 11.

“I literally told everybody that by the time I turned 19, I would be just as famous as Halle Berry and Jada Pinkett, and no one could tell me any different.

“So when I went to auditions and didn’t get parts, I was shocked. I would sit by the phone thinking, I know they’re gonna call; everybody’s gonna love me and see how great I am.

“I didn’t get one callback. But at the same time I was like, Eff this shit, I need money.”

Scraping together her savings, Minaj bought a second-hand white BMW and drove around New York selling her own mix tapes. Her tunes went viral and came to the attention of New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, who invited her to rap on tracks such as Knockout.

She was an immediate sensation thanks to her ferocious rhyming style and her expressive singing. In 2010, she appeared as a featured artist on seven hit singles in the US − setting a new record. Later that year, Pink Friday was released, and her stardom was confirmed.

Her hit-making streak has continued since that first album. Her fifth LP, Pink Friday 2, clocked up 90 million streams in its first three days last year.

But she’s never allowed success to change her – for better or worse.

When Vogue magazine asked about her attitude towards fame and success last year, she had a straightforward and uncompromising reply: “I’m one of those people who doesn’t go with a crowd”. (© Telegraph Media Group Ltd 2024)

“I told everybody that by the time I turned 19, I would be just as famous as Halle Berry”