Onika Tanya Maraj (born December 8, 1984 in Trinidad and Tobago but now lives in New York City, New York, United States), better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj, is a Trinidadian-American, rapper and singer-songwriter signed to a joint venture between Lil Wayne’s Young Money Entertainment and Universal Motown. After releasing several mixtapes and building substantial buzz online her debut album, Pink Friday, was released on November 22, 2010. In October 2010, Minaj became the first female rapper to have seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Pink Friday’s lead buzz track, Massive Attack, features singer-rapper Sean Garrett and was released on April 13th 2010, peaking at #19 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers Songs chart. Your Love, the album’s second single, was released on June 1st following a premature leak. The song peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at #1 on the Rap Songs chart, thus becoming Minaj’s most successful single release to date.
Minaj has been creating mixtape tracks since 2004, and appeared in XXL magazine. In 2008 she won the Female Artist of the Year award at the Underground Music Awards.
