Nicki Minaj
Born in Trinidad and having moved to New York at the age of five, Onika Tanya Marazh who later chose a stage name Nicki Minaj, began her musical career in 2007. Like many other singers, she started from the bottom - sent out a disc with promotional recordings of her songs titled «Playtime is Over» to the studios and somehow tried to attract the attention of the producers. She succeeded in doing it - a famous American rapper Lil Wayne noticed Nikki and took her under his protection. He made all the record companies fight for the right to sign the singer. Young Money Entertainment won this battle and almost immediately announced about Nikki’s upcoming debut.
The debut album of hip-hop performer Nicki was led by the previously released single «Your Love». The record was named «Pink Friday» and in the first month in the U.S. it has achieved platinum status, gradually ending up on the first line of the charts. Nicki Minaj herself managed to show the most incredible results and simultaneously get her seven singles into the charts rotation, surpassing the previous record. Three out of those seven singles – «Right Thru Me», «Did It On'em» and «Moment 4 Life» - entered the top 5 at different times. Another one of her hits, song titled «Check It Out», which was recorded in collaboration with will.i.am, is very successful in Europe.
We can judge about Nicki’s success and talent by the numerous collaborations she did with fellow musicians. Apart from the already mentioned will.i.am, Nicki Minaj managed to perform with Mariah Carey, Usher, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Britney Spears and other hip-hop, pop and rap stars. Nicki has received vaious awards as well - starting from 2008, she was regularly nominated and received awards in the field of hip-hop.
Nicki has done some creative experiments, such as inventing an alter ego. One of such alter egos is so-called "Roman Zolanski" – singer’s "twin", full of rage and anger. Singer states that in the song «Roman's Revenge», which she performed in a duet with Eminem, alter egos are present, not the performers themselves: they are Slim Shady and Roman. Another alt named "Nikki Teresa" appeared before the fans during one of their meetings. Yet another of Nicki Minaj’s personalities appeared on the Lopez Tonight show - Rosa the Spaniard. According to the singer, this love for masquerade comes from her childhood.
