Nicki Minaj Discusses Her Image

Young Money rapper Nicki Minaj is seemingly everywhere these days, and she opened up in the latest issue of VIBE magazine. Minaj discussed her ever-evolving image, her attempts to catch the eye of the fashion world and having something to prove when she dropped her debut album in 2010.

“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,” the rapper revealed. “And 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. And now my time for proving things to my critics is over. I don’t really need to prove anything to anyone else anymore.”

“Yeah, I realized more recently that even if it’s for a fashion magazine, I’m not gonna change who I am,” said Minaj. “When I was doing photo shoots last year, I kept on being told, ‘This is what we want your hair to look like and this is what we want you to look like,’ and it really, really stifled my creativity. So the other day I was talking to a photographer, and he said, ‘You know what, I like your everyday looks so much better than when you do photo shoots for magazines.’ And I was like, ‘So do I, you’re absolutely right.’ I’d been getting more and more frustrated for a while.”