Nicki Minaj Talks Being Misunderstood & Disliked: “Older Black Women Write Me Off”

Sam Lansky | November 6, 2012 12:18 pm

Do you think Nicki Minaj is misunderstood? Great — so does Nicki Minaj! That’s what the rapstress revealed in an interview with theGrio, where she elaborated on the theme that she mentioned during the premiere of her E! reality series My Truth on Sunday night — in short, that she blew the door open for other black women and isn’t adequately acknowledged for having done so. “People purposefully don’t see the strides I made for hip-hop and black women in general,” she said during My Truth. In the new interview, though, she takes it even further.

“People hear me talk sometimes and they think I’m trying to be cocky,” she said. “No, I’m trying to be real. I’m trying to give facts. Me coming out and having an album that went number 1 in Japan, Australia, U.K, and the U.S.; name one female rapper that’s ever done it. You can’t.” Watch My Truth up top, then head below for more of Minaj’s interview.

She continued to explain that her successes have been discredited by black women of the previous generation: “A lot of times within the black community, especially the older black women, they kinda just write me off. And I think it’s important for you to look at the companies that I’ve done business with and realize that every time I do a campaign and it’s a successful campaign, we show mainstream America that black women can sell a product and that black women are influential and that we can have our own people support something that we support. And so that’s what I want black women to understand.”

While nothing Minaj says is objectively untrue, she undermines her success by having to explain how successful she is, and the lack of humility isn’t particularly flattering. As others have pointed outMy Truth doesn’t paint her in the best light — but with so many accomplishments, why bother being likable?

[via theGrio]

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