During the discussion, Minaj fearlessly opens up about the moment she received the news of her father’s passing, offering insights into how this deeply personal experience shaped the first track of PF2, titled “Are You Gone Already.” The interview captures the essence of Minaj’s no-holds-barred approach, providing fans with an intimate glimpse into the artist’s emotional journey and the profound impact it had on her latest musical endeavor.
During the conversation, Minaj revealed how she heard about the death of her father and how it influenced her album:
The first verse. The thing why it’s confusing a little bit is because my documentary was originally going to be out with the music, but because the music wasn’t out, I didn’t want to put the documentary out. It’s a great documentary. But anyway, because [it wasn’t out], people are a little bit lost, because they don’t have any context. So I’m going to make it quick. The first verse was me talking to… “You never got to meet Papa.” Okay, it’s me speaking to my father.
My father had just passed. So right after I had the baby, and it was during Corona, and nobody knew what was going on, so, one day, I was rocking the baby and I don’t normally have the phone on me when I’m rocking him. Because at that time, I was mad strict like, “Oh, that [radiation] is going to get in my child, don’t put the phone by my child.” So normally, I wouldn’t have it.
But that day, as I’m rocking him, the phone rings, and I see it’s my father. I normally would not have picked up, because I don’t like to be on the phone with the baby there. I would’ve called him back. Something said, “Pick up the phone.” I picked up, he was very happy, and he was like, “Baby, I could come on Monday” Because he had been waiting to be able to come to Cali to help me. I kept on saying, “Come on out.” He wasn’t really happy, but I knew that, when he came be with us, we were going to be happy.
He is this amazing, great person, who livens up the whole house. I was like, “Yes, we were going to get help.” And then, we went to bed, and sometime late, while we were all asleep, the phone rang. And it was my mother, telling me that my father was in an accident and that she didn’t know what was going to happen, and she would call me back. And then, everything started spinning, literally, because now, also, I just had my baby. After I had my baby was the first time in my life that I ever fainted. I never knew what it felt like to faint, but I’m already hypersensitive with everything. So to get that call, and it’s the exact replica of a call, I had in about four or five dreams, but it was the exact replica of one particular dream I had about this.
[In the dream] the person was saying, “Such and such, your mom, we’re going to call you back and let you know how it went.” But this call now is with my father. And I’m like, “Wait a minute. I dreamt this.” But I remembered, in the dream, I didn’t get the call back. I didn’t remember how it ended. So I called my pastor and we started praying. But two nights before that, I had already texted three, four people, because it was including my mother. And I said, “Something bad is happening, and everybody needs to pray.”
But anyway, because I knew the two days before, I saw all this blood coming out of someone’s head laying on the floor, but the person was conscious, they were scared, but it was just pouring out in the hair. And I’m like thinking, “Whatever, whatever.” I sent that text to everybody like, “This is crazy.”
And then, two nights later, this happened. So I opened the album with saying, “You never got to meet papa. He sweet proper, he keep Mama on my toes.” What else I said? “You never got to meet Papa.” So I call my son Papa Bear. So I’m telling my father, “You never got to meet Papa.” And then, I begin to explain the time from my mother first calling me, telling me he was in an accident, to her calling me, telling me that he didn’t make it. So I’m like, “The waiting, the pacing, the raving.” And at the end, “I just believed you’d awaken, a memory in the making. Call me. Won’t you call me? Are you gone already?” Because I couldn’t believe so fast from accident on.
A few hours earlier. He was the happiest that I had heard him in a long time. But anyway, but what was interesting, why I said, ” Are you gone already?” is because I knew he was gone already. Because while we were praying, the prayer changed to not like being “Help him or duh, duh, duh.” The way the pastor just started speaking him was like calling him back.
– Nicki Minaj
You can watch the full conversation below.
