History of Nicki Minaj

Nicki Minaj was born on December 8, 1984, and grew up in Queens, New York. She is of African, Trinidadian and Indo-Asian descent. She graduated from LaGuardia High School in Manhattan where she studied singing and acting.

Minaj was discovered on MySpace by Dirty Money CEO Fendi, who signed her to his Dirty Money label. After appearing on The Carter Edition of Young Money's The Come Up DVD series, Minaj was contacted by Lil Wayne. The two collaborated on a number of mixtape tracks. In April 2007, she released her first mixtape, Playtime Is Over, where she posed as a Barbie doll on the cover. Lil Wayne appeared on the track "Can't Stop, Won't Stop".

In 2008, Minaj released her mixtape, Sucka Free. She appeared in the July issue of XXL magazine, giving a brief overview of her life up to that point in time. Later that year, Minaj won Female Artist of the Year at the Underground Music Awards.

Nicki Minaj released Beam Me Up Scotty, another mixtape, in 2009. It received generally positive coverage on the of both BET and MTV.

In August 2009, Minaj signed to Young Money Entertainment with distributution from Universal Motown wherein she will release her debut studio album in 2010. Minaj also featured on Jeffree Star's 2009 album Beauty Killer on the track "Lollipop Luxury".