Nicki Minaj: I Don't Need to Rap About "My Genitalia" to Be Successful

USMagazine, Friday, February 17, 2012, 2:23pm (PST)

She's performed at Super Bowl XLVI with Madonna and had one of the biggest hits of 2011 with "Super Bass," but success didn't come easy for Nicki Minaj.

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"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-ssy," Minaj tells the February/March issue of VIBE. "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."

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Minaj's first CD, Pink Friday, debuted at No. 2 in 2010, selling 375,000 copies. It marked the second-highest sales week for a female rapper since Lauryn Hill released The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1998.

The "Starships" rapper (real name: Onika Maraj) says she was able to make a name for herself in the hip-hop community by staying true to her artistic vision.

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"It's not hard to get your way when it's your way or the highway," Minaj tells VIBE. "In the beginning, if people didn't know me they'd probably assume I wasn't smart or wasn't business savvy. But once you sit and talk to me, it's a different story."

Minaj's sophomore album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, hits stores April 3.

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