Nicki Minaj seemingly diss her collaborator Kanye West during her fiery performance at Essence Festival on the heels of his new collab with Cardi B.
The Barbz are not happy with Hulu and their last-minute decision to cut Nicki’s live performance at Essence Fest, and apparently, it also seems that Nicki Minaj and longtime friend and collaborator, Kanye West are not on good terms.
On Friday night, Nicki Minaj headlined day one of the 2022 Essence Festival on July 1, and she had a lot of things to say. While on stage, she performed several of her hit singles despite having her set be delayed by 45 minutes and causing Hulu to not stream her performance.
She performed her single “Do We Have A Problem” and brought back a couple of hits- “We Go Up,” “Did It On ’em,” and “Beez in the Trap.” The performance was going well until her DJ selected her song “Monster” with Kanye West, released in 2010, and Minaj was not having it as she not only skipped the song, she hinted as to why she was not performing it.
As the song’s intro comes on, she gets some things off her chest.
“I’m all monstered out! A monster though!” Nicki Minaj began. “A monster though! But we don’t f*** with clowns,” she said to her screaming fans.
She also immediately moved on with her set despite usually performing “Monster,” as it is one of her fan base’s favorite featured collab of all times. Minaj later brought out Cash Money Records co-founder Birdman and Young Money founder and her mentor and friend Lil Wayne, who performed several of their biggest hits together.
Minaj’s comments have been viewed as a diss to Kanye West and a reaction to his latest song with her nemesis Cardi B.
West made a guest appearance on Cardi B’s “Hot Sh*t” single, which was coincidentally released on Friday as well.
Social media users immediately reacted to Minaj’s comment, with many referencing a possible falling out between the two rappers over their collaboration “New Body.”
The song was to feature on Kanye’s unreleased album Yandhi and then re-worked to fit into the very religious theme of Jesus is King. All seemed well as Ye even previewed the track at various listening but later dropped it. Media reports suggested that the song was scrapped due to “creative differences” between the two rappers.
Earlier this year, Minaj spoke to Hot 106 about how Kanye made her re-do the song several times only to not release it. She revealed that Kanye West asked her to re-write her verse four times to fit into where he was at spiritually and creatively. Nicki Minaj said she was then taken aback when she saw the G.O.O.D. Music rapper on Drink Champs smoking a blunt and drinking, which was contrary to his Christian image.
“Had ‘New Body’ been out when he was not in his gospel era, then it would’ve seen the light of day, the Trinidadian rapper said. But, it didn’t, so it wasn’t meant to be. Everybody knows that was the hit that got away.”
Nicki Minaj also didn’t seem to care about the collab with Kanye anymore when she was asked if Kanye came again to collaborate.
By now she has given up hopes that the song will ever see the light of day, something that she has learned to accept as an artist with over a decade experience in the game.
Kanye West has never addressed the reason behind the song not being released by him.
However, fans reacted to Nicki Minaj’s statement and the drama with Essence Fest.
“Imma wait until she go live tomorrow cause you know she about to get into some thangs,” one fan said.
“Angela Lee & Hulu gon get what they deserve,” one fan said, while another added that Yee disrespected the rapper by not calling her by her name.
Another frustrated fan said, “Hulu isn’t even have her on the thumbnail and even Angela Lee didn’t mention Nicki when she was listing out the performers tonight even tho Nicki is the HEADLINER. Which means essence and Hulu never even planned to live stream her part. Also they messed w/ her money by not paying her the amount she was supposed to and messed with her clothes. They let ppl perform past their set time which pushed her set time back. Her set already takes time to set up so by the time her performance was ready pll we’re already leaving. They played her all damn night.”
“It’s giving lack of comprehension. Kanye has been messing with Nicki for a minute now. First, scrapping her new body verse, and switching up on their potential clothing line, and God knows what else. Kanye is a shady lunatic,” another said.
