Nicki Minaj is ‘The Real Her’ edition of Complex Magazine’s December/January issue. The five page spread what shot by photgrapher, Vijat Mohindra and written by complex editor Lauren Nostro who interviewed Minaj in Hollywood. The two chatted about her new album the PinkPrint and its inspiration from Jay-Z’s Blue Print album. Nicki also address the open letter she received from a blog editor regarding her controversial ‘Anaconda’ video.
Take a read at few excerpts below along with some of the pics from her photoshoot.
On Pink Print Being Her Most Personal Album To Date:
” My family, loss, death, guilt…. I’ve struggled with a lot of guilt…..
When you’re working and you’re busy and you’re successful, no matter what, something suffers, whether it’s your relationship with your mother, your relationship with your whole family, not being able to go to your brother’s graduation…. Certain things suffer and take the back burner, not because they’re on the back burner in your heart but because the world just moves so quickly. A lot of people, when they’re chasing their dreams, they have to leave people they love. A lot of artists feel that guilt but they don’t express it. “
On Privacy & How She’s Stays Off The Paparazzi Radar:
” I worry to an extent. It doesn’t keep me up at night but I would be lying if I said that privacy isn’t important to me. I’ve always been like that. I give so much; I don’t curb myself in my music and I try my best to be straightforward when I do interviews. So, I do worry. What if I didn’t have something sacred? What if I wasn’t able to keep my secrets? How would that make me feel? I’ve always prided myself on not talking about certain things, holding certain things dear to my heart and leaving them just for me. “
About Her Controversial ‘Anaconda’ Video & Open Letter Response To he Chief Editor Of All HipHop.com:
“Shut your stupid ass up. Bye, dad.” I laughed at it. But I also didn’t even know that that was happening….
I wanted to create a song that embraced curvy women. I wanted to be sexual but be playful with it. And I wanted it to be so melodic that even if you don’t understand English you could still go along with the melody and you would have no idea about all the raunchy shit I’m saying—I get a kick out of that. It was simple to write. I just created the melody and then I let the words happen. I started laughing when I said, “Boy toy named Troy.” [Laughs.]
That whole song, I was just being dumb. It was a joke. My biggest thing was seeing how my girlfriends Sherika and Thembi were going to react. If they don’t like a song, they’ll be like, “No.” As soon as they walked in the studio, we were laughing and having fun. I thought, if we’re doing this, then everybody is going to have fun with it. “
On Jay-‘z Blue Print Being The Inspiration For The Pink Print:
” I can’t. I have no idea what he was doing before The Blueprint dropped. It’s not that literal. People keep asking me about Jay’s The Blueprint and they think I’m doing something like that. I made reference to The Blueprint because Jay is the biggest rapper of our time. The name of the album was inspired by Jay but not the body of work. I do think that it’s going to create new rules, though, in [the way] that [The Blueprint did]. “