Nicki Minaj on ‘Last Time I Saw You’: “People don’t realise how scary it can be for an artist to try something new”

8 September, 2023

Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj has spoken about her recent single ‘Last Time I Saw You’, explaining how “scary” it was for her to “try something new”.

Last Friday (September 1), the New Yorker dropped the sombre pop ballad, explaining how the track captured a feeling of hope over loss.

“Even [though] reliving the memories did feel ‘sad,’ after I wrote, recorded, [and] lived [with the song], it actually made me pay more attention to the people I still DO have, and how important it is to cherish them and have fun NOW [and] in the moment,” she wrote. “Telling them how much you adore them, etc. [It] made me so happy.”

Then, on Apple Music 1‘s New Music Daily radio show with Zane Lowe, Minaj spoke to the prolific radio presenter about her new track as well as her upcoming fifth album ‘Pink Friday 2’.

On ‘Last Time I Saw You’, she said she wants to “represent [her] growth, not just as an artist, but as a human being.” Minaj also revealed that she was apprehensive about dropping such an emotional song: “People don’t realise how scary it can be for an artist to try something new no matter how big of an artist it is.

“If you’re not a major Nicki Minaj fan,” she later explained, “you wouldn’t know [that] Nicki Minaj does this kind of music. You would just think I’m only doing the boobs and butt and penises and, you know.”

She confessed to Lowe that ‘Last Time I Saw You’ “didn’t intend on it being a single”.

“A lot of times people forget that I do a lot of features, and so these are not my actual songs,” she said, “so sometimes people forget the kind of music that I’m able to create because it’s been a long time since they heard an album, and most of the times they get [songs like ‘Last Time I Saw You’] on the album.”

The Grammy-nominated rapper also spoke about her son Papa Bear, whom she had in September 2020, and how he “grounded” her amidst the bad in her life: “When I look at my son, I can’t be angry at the universe. I can’t be angry at God because I realize he’s given me all these blessings, so I have to take the good with the bad, you know?”

Last July, Drake announced on stage at the ‘It’s All A Blur tour that he and Minaj have a song on his upcoming album ‘FOR ALL THE DOGS’. “I love the song so much,” the Barb said about the collab. “I’ll just say I really love the song. I know my fans are going to love the song. I know the world’s going to love the song. And that’s all I will say about that.”

However, she quickly called out the 6God: “[Her fan base] Barbz, make sure y’all let Drizzy Drake know that ‘Pink Friday 2’ is coming out November 17th and we are waiting on his contribution.”

Reflecting on ‘Pink Friday 2’, Minaj reassured that the album “is never going to be any album where it’s only going to be one kind of song.” The album will be her first since 2018’s ‘Queen’ and will arrive 13 years after its original, her Number One platinum-selling debut album ‘Pink Friday’. On September 4, she unveiled the first of two covers for the album. Have a look below.

‘Pink Friday 2’ will be out on November 17 this year via Heavy On It/10K Projects/Capitol Records – the record label Minaj launched in April.

Last month, Nicki Minaj was featured on the Barbie soundtrack with her Aqua-sampling Ice Spice collaboration ‘Barbie World’. The track was so popular over the summer period that it was listed on the UK TikTok Songs of the Summer lists.

In the same month, she also became a playable character in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. In the game, you can hear the rapper say some funny taunts that play on some of her biggest hits.

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