There are a handful of artists who, despite the cliché, genuinely need no introduction. Nicki Minaj is one of them. If you haven’t heard of her, you’ve either been living under a rock, or lost your hearing around 2005. Undoubtedly one of the most influential rap artists in contemporary hip-hop, she’s been honoured by some of the music industry’s most respected institutions and publications. Her trophy closet is home to 11 BET Awards, four Billboard Music Awards, four MTV VMAs and 10 Grammy nominations.

Dazed declared her to be the “most successful” female hip-hop artist in history, while Complex Magazine named her verse on Kanye West’s ‘Monster’ as the best rap verse of the decade, a sentiment West himself shares. Nicki also tops the list of Instagram followers for any rapper or hip-hop artist, male or female.

Nicki Minaj sales figures speak to her universal appeal and enduring popularity: as one of the world’s best-selling artists, she’s sold five million albums worldwide, 20 million singles solo, and another 60 million as a featured artist. Nicki balances this commercial success with a desire to remain progressive and unique, recording music that takes full advantage of her limitless imagination, penning vivid lyrics brought to life by her offbeat flows and animated delivery.

Over four studio albums and countless features on singles from almost every top-tier hip-hop artist in the game, Nicki has forged a reputation as a true individualist: not afraid to venture outside the stylistic confines of rap, she’s embraced production that fuses maximalist pop, technicolour EDM and seductive R&B with the typical templates of hip-hop and trap, and her rapid fire vocal style flits between alter egos and accents, metaphors and punch lines with ease.

Fresh from the worldwide success of her platinum-certified 2018 album “Queen”, Nicki Minaj is currently touring internationally.