Is Nicki Minaj dropping a new album this year?

Nicki Minaj has teased that she may release a new album by the end of the year following her recent record-breaking success.

Back in August, the rapper debuted at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 with her latest single, ‘Super Freaky Girl’, making her the first solo female rapper to achieve the feat in almost a quarter of a century.

• READ MORE: Nicki Minaj: every album ranked and rated

It’s one of two major feats Minaj accomplished with her first solo track in more than two years, as ‘Super Freaky Girl’ also became her first Number One hit as a lead artist. The rapper has three to her name altogether, having topped the Hot 100 twice in 2020 – first alongside Doja Cat with their collaborative ‘Say So’ remix, then with her 6ix9ine joint ‘Trollz’ (notably, though, the latter suffered the biggest-ever chart fall for a Number One debut).

Now, in a new conversation with Interview Magazine, Minaj says the success of the song has made her consider pushing her new album forwards and releasing it before the end of 2022.

“I wasn’t sure how I was even feeling about having to put out an album this year, but that song happening and people liking it, that made me happy,” she said.

“People have gone through so much recently that they want to have fun. It’ll probably expedite the album to come out this year.”

‘Super Freaky Girl’ was Minaj’s first solo release since July 2019 when she dropped the standalone single ‘Megatron’. She’s kept busy since then, however, releasing four collaborative joints – ‘Do We Have A Problem?’ and ‘Bussin’ with Lil Baby, ‘Blick Blick’ with Coi Leray, and ‘We Go Up’ with Fivio Foreign – this year alone.

Last week, Minaj criticised the Grammys for putting her August single ‘Super Freaky Girl’ in the Best Pop Solo Performance category for the 2023 awards, saying: “‘Super Freaky Girl,’ where I only rapped on the song, was removed out of the rap categories at the Grammys and put in pop.”

“[Drake’s] ‘Hotline Bling’ won Best Rap Song and Best Rap Sung [Performance],” she said, referencing the 2016 single that the artist himself said had no place in the rap category, with Drake saying at the time: “I’m a black artist, I’m apparently a rapper, even though ‘Hotline Bling‘ is not a rap song.”

“Now, let’s say that ‘Super Freaky Girl’ is a pop song,” Minaj continued. “Let’s just say that. What is [Latto’s] ‘Big Energy’? … If you move ‘Super Freaky Girl’ out of rap and put it in pop, do the same thing for ‘Big Energy.’ Same producers on both songs, by the way. So let’s keep shit fair. Even when I’m rapping on a pop track, I still out-rap.”

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