The song that took Nicki Minaj a year to bring to the studio
Nicki Minaj is certainly a contentious figure both within the hip-hop community and generally. What she also is, indisputably, is a highly successful artist who has forged a sustained career in the industry.
Before setting her sights on a career in music, Nicki aimed to be an actress. As a budding teen, she successfully auditioned for Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, one of only nine specialised high schools to receive special funding from the New York State Legislature. Some of the school’s alumni include acclaimed American dancer Desmond Richardson and singer Suzanne Vega.
Following her graduation, Minaj was cast in the Off-Broadway play ‘In Case You Forget’ in 2001, but she saw little success after the end of the production. Minaj left acting behind and struggled to retain a job for a long stretch of time, even being fired as a waitress at Red Lobster for discourtesy to customers, which doesn’t come as a surprise for some reason.
Minaj eventually settled on rapping and made a handful of middling mixtapes that saw some chart success until she was discovered by hip-hop legend Lil Wayne. Suddenly, Nicki Minaj was featured on tracks with the likes of Gucci Mane, Tyga, and Mariah Carey, among other people. Nevertheless, the rapper had bigger things on the horizon.
In 2010 she released her first studio album ‘Pink Friday’ which shot straight to number one on the Billboard 200 and reportedly sold a massive 375,000 copies in the first week of release. Some might say that if ‘Pink Friday’ released today, we’d all be having a pink Summer instead of a brat Summer. The album included the hit single ‘Super Bass’ and later iterations included the monstrously successful single ‘Starships’.
Listening to the album, the hype is understandable. Nicki doesn’t ever settle into one genre and the album is a really intriguing combination of pop and hip-hop. By doing this Minaj announced herself to the world, setting herself out as an artist with an individual style.
Come 2018 and Nicki is still one of the premier female names in hip-hop. Always in the spotlight, be that in a positive or negative light, usually negative, she is either way still grabbing headlines. She decides though that it’s time for her music to do the talking once again and releases her fourth studio album ‘Queen’, not to be confused with the 1980s rock band.
‘Queen’ released to a mostly positive reaction and debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with 185,000 album equivalent units. One of the most popular songs on the album ‘Bed’ was one that actually took Nicki the longest to perfect.
Nicki explained that she had the chorus for ‘Bed’ for a year and had never had the thought of putting anyone else on it. It just so happened that her good friend, whom you might have heard of, Ariana Grande visited the studio during the production of ‘Queen’. Ariana offered to get on one of the tracks, but Nicki couldn’t think of anything suitable.
It was only once Ariana had left that someone in the studio suggested ‘Bed’, and the whole room burst into screams of encouragement. Ariana recorded the hook for ‘Bed’ and sent it straight back to the Bajan rapper, who instantly fell in love with it. She tweeted about her reaction “[Ariana] added all these beautiful harmonies & runs. Never over does it. Just ALWAYS gets it right. I fell in love. I called her screaming”.
The record became a fan favourite on the album and Ariana’s contribution is undoubtedly a factor behind that.