She may have been faced with her fair share of controversies in recent years, but 39-year-old Nicki Minaj has made it clear that 2022 is the year she’s coming back with a vengeance – and a new alter ego.
As you may have heard on the mother of one’s latest single, “Super Freaky Girl,” she sampled the late Rick James’ 1981 track, “Super Freak” (a title which she had already sampled on her 2007 song “Dilly Dally” from her Playtime is Over mixtape), seemingly inspiring her to craft a similar moniker of her own.
Nicki Minaj in 2016 — Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
On Saturday (September 3), the “Moment 4 Life” artist uploaded two photos that find her posing in a giant pink Barbie doll box, the name “Nick James” written in the corner.
While channelling the icon, Minaj wore knee-high red boots, a leather jacket in a matching colour, zipped up over a black bodysuit and dark rights. She pulled red cat-eye sunglasses over her eyes and left her silky black hair in natural bouncy curls around her shoulders.
“BE ON the LOOK OUT when I come through #BOLO #NickJames,” she wrote in the caption.
If you tuned into the “Super Freaky Girl” music video after it dropped last week, you would have seen the Trinidadian rapper wearing the same fit, though her Barbie box in the footage simply reads “Nicki.”
The Pink Print hitmaker donned a variety of looks for the project, and tapped Vikings actor Alexander Ludwig to play Ken opposite her Barbie – check it out below, and tap back in with HNHH later for more hip-hop news updates.