Nicki Minaj Gets Deep About Everything In Conversation With Joe Budden

The Pink Friday rapper’s keeping it all the way real.

Source: Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images / Getty

Nicki Minaj sat down with Joe Budden for a deep interview that premiered live today on YouTube.

Nicki Minaj Talks Her Influence & Praises Lil Kim

The sit-down included Minaj and Budden touching on topics like Nicki getting plastic surgery and how she influenced the looks and style of female rappers who came after her.

While speaking on her own impact as well as the impact of others who came before her, she expressed how underappreciated and underpaid icons like Lil Kim were.

“I would never see any female rapper wearing pink hair,” she said. “Pink hair became a part of that starter kit. Every female rapper will put on a pink wig at some point. And I remember that was just the Nicki Minaj thing. That’s why when I said ‘pink wig, thick a***’—that’s an iconic Nicki Minaj line because that’s what she wears.

…The same way I feel I should have already been on the cover of American Vogue, so should Lil’ Kim.”

Nicki and Budden also shared their thoughts on how Hip-Hop is perceived today and Nicki lamented about people hopping on trends and becoming “faceless.”

“In my opinion, rap is the only culture that, from the beginning of time, has been vilified. From the very beginning, we have been treated like the bad guy. We’re held to a different level of judgment.”

Nicki Minaj Opens Up About Getting Butt Shots After Hearing Jokes About Her Body

In a raw moment early on in the interview, Nicki shared with Joe how influential Lil Wayne was in her decision to get her body cosmetically enhanced with “butt shots.”

“Social media was just beginning when I started so I was a lot of people’s guinea pigs,” Nicki. “It wasn’t acceptable to have surgery at all or anything and at that time, I had never had surgery. I had a** shots.”

She admitted looking back that she had insecurities because Wayne and other acts on Young Money brought women around a.k.a. “muses” who were curvier than she was naturally. She also noted that their jokes affected her and influenced her decision to have the shots.

“And actually what happened was I kept on being around Wayne and them. At that time, you know Wayne, he’s always talking about big booties…,” said Nicki. “Wayne would have a new chick in the studio every session. So they were his muses but I just was around them all the time and I was like the little sister. This is what you’re supposed to look like in the rap culture and I don’t look like that.”

[…]

“Even if they’re joking, they don’t know that the person that is there in that room with them is not finding it funny. They’re thinking that they know that they’re pretty or smart, you’re thinking that this is what this person is thinking about themselves–but a lot of time you don’t know how insecure a person is or what their insecurities are.

Where they might have been playing with me—they don’t know that I always had that insecurity. It wasn’t a joke to me.”

Nicki also dished on her career evolution, a forthcoming acting gig, and hashed out her previous issues with Budden. Remember that?