Nicki Minaj

For better or worse, Nicki Minaj has developed a reputation for living up to her married name, being extra petty when it comes to getting credit and attention in the rap game. While it’s likely at least some of that rep derives more from her overprotective fans lashing out at anyone they perceive as a threat, she’s still worked pretty hard in recent years to undo some of the damage.

After nearly a decade of declining collaborations with her fellow women in rap, she’s worked with newer rappers like Doja Cat and Coi Leray (although the Leray one was almost derailed by Nicki’s ego), with a Latto collab rumored to be releasing soon, as well.

However, that doesn’t mean she appreciates being compared and contrasted to the modern generation of women currently running rap — a generation that includes assumed rival Cardi B, City Girls (who, to be fair, dissed her first), and Megan Thee Stallion. Case in point, she recently tweeted a screenshot of an article praising her, but edited a line mentioning some of her collaborators and frenemies by scratching out their names. In its unedited form on HotNewHipHop, the line reads, “Despite the welcomed contributions of women like Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion City Girls, and Doja Cat over the past few years, female rap still feels incomplete without Nicki Minaj’s presence and output, and that alone illustrates how important she is to Hip-Hop, as a genre, and as a culture.”

The cryptic nature of the edits, presented without comment by Nicki, prompted fans to immediately begin speculating, with results polarized between affirming Nicki’s perceived penchant for drama and crediting her for trying not to draw focus, since her watchdog-like Barbz could perceive even the mention of other female rappers as a slight against their Queen.

Whatever her reason for crossing the names out, it’s a fair bet to say she knew that the move would stir up controversy — which, to be fair, may have been the point of the whole exercise. People are certainly talking about Nicki, something we know she enjoys, and if she really is dropping a new collab with Latto in a few days, the move will certainly result in more eyes on the collab, as well as “Blick Blick,” her recent one with Coi Leray.