Nicki Minaj wants to give black women "confidence."
Nicki Minaj wants to give black women confidence
The 39-year-old rap star - who is married to Kenneth Petty and has a two-year-old son with him - explained that there is a "lack of representation" for black women in the music industry and she always wants to "empower" her female fans with her work.
She said: "There’s always been a lack of representation for black women: as soon as you start becoming famous, you owe it to the entire culture to say things that other black women can repeat to make themselves feel great. When you grow up and you’re only seeing people that look a certain way on the covers of magazines, in the movies and on TV, you can start feeling, 'Am I not good enough?'
"It comes from performing as well. Once you see the look on people’s faces when they’re singing your lyrics back to you, and the confidence and happiness they’re having, it makes you want to always empower girls to feel. 'Like, yo, I don’t need a guy for anything. I can put my mind to anything I need to do, and do it just as well as the men on my own! Except for have sex with a penis, I don’t know about that!"
The 'Super Bass' hitmaker is well-known for her outspoken nature and explained that she will always "speak up" because her fans will not abandon her and even if she was unable to create any more music she will still be an "icon" of the rap industry.
She told ID Magazine: "I’ve decided that I have to speak up now. You know, I see the hip-hop community praise so many other people for speaking up for themselves, but for some reason they seem to have an issue when I do it. Once I realised that there’s that double standard, I decided I don’t give a s*** anymore. The last part of it is that if I never rap again, I will still leave this earth as an icon. I guess there is a little less fear now at this point in my career because I realise that my fans aren’t going anywhere. I’ve paid my dues.
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