Fabia Drake OBE ^[1] (20 January 1904 — 28 February 1990) was an English actress whose professional career spanned almost 73 years during the 20th century.

Drake was born in Herne Bay, Kent. Her first professional role, in a film, was in Fred Paul's Masks and Faces (1917), and her last role was as the inimitable, irresistible Madame de Rosemonde in Miloš Forman's Valmont (1989).

Drake was a lifelong friend of Laurence Olivier.

Early life[link]

Born not Drake, but Ethel McGlinchy, the actress's Irish father, a caterer, was an actor manqué, whose great love was the theatre and who was given to quoting Shakespeare - in her autobiography Drake recalled: " The dire warning that lies behind 'I wasted time and now doth time waste me' (Richard II), was, I swear, more likely to engender sustained effort than the more customary,'Don't be lazy'! " She passed an entrance test to the Academy of Dramatic Art (later to become RADA), in December 1913 - a small class existed at that time for children between the ages of ten and sixteen who attended only in the afternoons but who had an identical adult curriculum with that of senior students. (It was the high-ups at the ADA who decided McGlinchy was too difficult to pronounce and too hard to remember for a stage name so she changed it, ultimately by deed-poll, to Drake which was the second of her father's Christian names and to Fabia which was the second of her baptismal names, chosen because she was born on St Fabian's Day). She attended also Tree's Academy, founded by Sir Herbert Tree. Contemporaries at the Academy of Dramatic Art included the actress Meggie Albanesi, who burnt herself out at the early age of 24, Eva Le Gallienne, and Miles Malleson - a senior student who wrote plays for her. She was small, was called the Shrimp, and played a very wide range of parts - Richard II, Macbeth, Cardinal Richelieu in Bulwer Lytton's play, the Shaughraun in Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. Her teachers included Norman Page, whom she admired and whose teaching she responded to - " he gave you confidence, he inspired you with his enthusiasm', and Helen Haye, whom she did not respond to and who was not, according to Drake, a great teacher.^[2] She made her first professional appearance on a stage at the Court Theatre, Sloane Square, in a Children's Theatre production called The Cockjolly Bird, as a hermit land-crab - " in a shell of immense weight and unparalleled discomfort." Her first paid work came when she was cast in a production of The Happy Family. Also in the cast was a young man who " had rather 'stick-out' ears, and his name was Noël Coward." It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. In the same year, 1916, she met a heroine - Ellen Terry - when she played Robin, Falstaff's diminutive page in scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor, for a week, at the Palace Pier Theatre in Brighton.

Besides acting the most formative influence in Drake's childhood was the Anglican religion - later seceded from - and the outstanding memory of her Christmases was the sung Saint Cecilia Mass of Gounod, at the Midnight Mass in the Anglo-Catholic church of All Saints, Margaret Street. One of the preachers at this church, Geoffrey Heald, produced each year the All Saints choirboys in scenes by Shakespeare, in the clergy house. When one year the chorister set to play Sir Toby Belch in the kitchen scene from Twelfth Night fell ill, Drake was called in to replace him, and so she met a junior chorister also in the production - Laurence Olivier. "His subsequent intimate friendship became one of my most treasured possessions; we would watch each others work, stay in each others houses, be available during public and private moments of triumph and disaster" she wrote, though she never played with him again.^[3] At the age of sixteen she was sent to a finishing school in France, Camposenea at Meudon-val-Fleury. It had been a hunting lodge of Louis XIV and the sunken marble bath of Madame de Maintenon was still in place. She was taken to Rheims, in ruins after the First World War, to Versailles, Chartres, the Forest of Fontainebleau, and she was taught, amongst others, by Georges Le Roy sociétaire of the Comédie-Française who was to become one of the great teachers of the Paris Conservatoire.

Career[link]

Back in London in 1921 and unemployed she spent time with Meggie Albanesi, in her dressing room during her 'waits' in Alabanesi's current success A Bill of Divorcement at St Martin's Theatre. Drake wrote that, "Albanesi was by now established as the most talented young actress in England, under contract to Basil Dean...the warmth and sympathy of her personality was like a lodestar in my bleak night sky." Having tried, and failed, to gain employment with J.E.Vedrenne, Drake decided to join Madame Alice Gachet's French acting classes at RADA, another teacher of brilliance, her most famous pupil - Charles Laughton. She did then sign with Vedrenne for 18 months, playing small parts, and understudying and was then sent to Basil Dean who was about to produce James Elroy Flecker's Hassan. This proved a memorable production, incidental music was by Frederick Delius, the great ballet in the House-of-the-Moving-Walls was devised by Fokine, and the cast included Malcolm Keen as the Caliph and Henry Ainley as Hassan. Drake, an understudy, would play both of the two women's parts in the play, Yasmin and Pervaneh - Isabel Jeans (Yasmin) and Laura Cowrie (Parveneh), both went down with influenza in the epidemic of 1923.

Drake worked with Tallulah Bankhead (above) on Roland Pertwee's The Creaking Chair - Bankhead was 23, Drake 20. Bankhead found Drake's virginity an absurdity: "Such a shocking waste, Dahrling, with your figure." They became genuine, if unlikely, friends; Tallulah was a wit, with warmth and generosity.^[4]

When C. Aubrey Smith needed an actress to play his daughter in a production of Roland Pertwee's The Creaking Chair his wife suggested Fabia and she was released from Hassan to go off and create her own, first, part. The play ran for six months, directed by Gerald du Maurier, and starred Tallulah Bankhead as well as Aubrey Smith. Shortly after this Drake worked with Marie Tempest in a play by John Hastings Turner called The Scarlet Lady. In Marie Tempest she found " artistic understanding, comradeship and succour." The play was a success when it opened and brought Drake some critical attention. Charles Langbridge Morgan, then critic of The Times (October 1926): " Fabia Drake...she has not been long on the professional stage. She has judgment and poise and a mind that lifts a trivial part out of its triviality." And James Agate in The Sunday Times (3 October 1926) ; " Miss Fabia Drake is probably the best ingénue on the present-day stage, and provided she is able to conceal her brains will one day make a popular success. She suggests health, physical, mental and moral."

In the London theatre between the First and Second World Wars, Sunday play-producing societies flourished. These societies acted as shop windows for rising players and try-out theatres for new dramatists. RADA ex-students decided to have their own Sunday society, The RADA Players and Drake became the second of its secretaries. In a play of Allan Monkhouse's called Sons and Fathers, Drake played opposite a young John Gielgud. She was the victim of serious stage-fright at this period in her career, the result of a spasm in her throat that prevented her from speaking and that she feared would return at inopportune moments.

In 1929 she went with the Memorial Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon on its tour of the United States - in three weeks she had to learn the parts of Lady Macbeth, Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, the Queen in Hamlet ( 'but I should never have been cast to play Gertrude. I was only twenty-five, just a touch on the young side when the Hamlet is nearing forty'), Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Viola in Twelfth Night. Later Drake reflected that Bridges Adams, the resident Director of the Memorial Theatre, ( Royal Shakespeare) did her a disservice in this, for the restrictions of the time-table required she learn her roles by rote. There was no time for her to live with the parts. (As Lady Macbeth in 1933 at Stratford, the Komisarjevsky production, in the sleepwalking scene, she was painted by Walter Sickert - the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy exhibition in 1934 to celebrate Sickert's election as R.A.) Shortly before leaving on the White star liner SS Megantic rehearsing Macbeth she suffered a recurrence of the spasm in her throat and so the trip began with an element of fear.

Drake was offered a contract for a six month tour of the U.S. and Canada - a very demanding one, nine plays, eight of them to be presented one after the other in the first week. She had to learn her parts in three weeks. " Mistress Page proved a great stumbling block. She speaks only prose..only two days were left for Mrs Page: 'Oh I can finish her off (she nearly finished me off) on board the boat ", (the SS Megantic,above) - Drake wrote that the 'cramming' required to play all the parts harmed her ability to play some of these later in her career.

Afraid of a choking fit and being unable to speak her lines she nevertheless got through her performances in Boston, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St Louis, Denver, Washington - but in Chicago she finally reached the end of her strength. She sought psychiatric help and with the psychiatrist traced the first intrusion of her phobia into her work on the stage and its possible origin in a lie she had told to avoid catechism when she had made herself sick by pushing a spoon down her throat. Until her temporary retirement from the stage, when she got married, she was henceforth to make herself physically sick before each and every performance - to get rid of the choking before she went near the stage.^[5] Back in England her friend John Gielgud asked her to play Rosalind in a production of As You Like It at the Old Vic - Drake would become closely identified with this role. In 1931 she made another tour of the U.S. and Canada, this time meeting Ivor Novello in Los Angeles - he too became a friend. Back from Hollywood she played in the opening performance at the Stratford-on-Avon Memorial Theatre, Henry IV, Part I, which was a near disaster because much of the performance was inaudible. Drake herself, playing the minute part of Lady Percy, was helped by the fact that she played her first scene on the apron-stage, and was completely audible. The critics noticed her performance all the more; H.V. Morton was covering the event for the Daily Herald and the next morning the Daily Herald produced a placard on its billboards which read : All Stratford talks of one woman.

Following her marriage in December 1938 to Maxwell Turner, a barrister-at-law, she retired entirely from the stage. Her daughter was born in March 1940. Over ten years of provoking physical sickness before each and every performance had taken its toll, but in 1943, when Sir Kenneth Barnes asked her to join his depleted teaching staff at RADA she was recovered and available. For the three years 1943, 1944, 1945 she worked with students, work which she later described as, 'one of the most stimulating and rewarding periods' of her life. Her students included Roger Moore, John Neville, Robert Shaw, and Richard Johnson. She also undertook a production of Henry V, although it was not with RADA students, but with American Army personnel. Renée Asherson also appeared in the production, the French Princess of the film version. (Having seen this production Robert Donat asked Drake to undertake the casting and production of his forthcoming post-war season in management at the Aldwych Theatre). Drake's teaching work finished at RADA when she began to have a pain in her jaw and she had to leave in the middle of a term.

She became interested in researching Shakespeare's troupe of actors, men like Richard Burbage and Thomas Pope, and the effect the actors had on Shakespeare's creation of roles for them.

Her husband having died from liver cancer at the age of 53, she was invited by Binkie Beaumont to return to the theatre. She accepted the offer of a part in a thriller called Write Me A Murder by Frederick Knott. Feeling the need for sun and a warmer climate after the play finished she travelled to Ischia - it was 1962 and the year of the Great Freeze in Britain. From this point travel became an important part of her life, and through this she came to know 'learned gentlemen' who spoke to the travellers on cruises on cultural matters., men like Maurice Bowra, John Wolfenden, and Mortimer Wheeler. She wrote later of owing a great deal to Wheeler : " Because, when a woman loses her man in death and is no longer young she can easily move into a resigned approach to old age which Aphrodite Ambologera is said to postpone". She trusted and valued his friendship, amitié amoureuse.

She continued to work on radio and on television, including work with Dickie Henderson in comedy sketches for Thames TV, and Leslie Crowther ( in ATV's Big Boy, Now!), as well as in major series like The Pallisers and P.G.Wodehouse's, The World of Wooster, playing Bertie Wooster's outrageous Aunt Agatha, with Ian Carmichael (Bertie) and Dennis Price ( the inimitable Jeeves), and an acclaimed performance as Mabel Layton in The Jewel in the Crown ( 1984 ). There were also two notable screen performances, as Catherine Alan in A Room with a View ( 1985 ) and as Madame de Rosemonde in Valmont (1989 ).

Personal life[link]

She married Maxwell Turner, a barrister-at-law - and brother of John Hastings Turner the dramatist of her two plays with Marie Tempest - in December 1938. Their only child, a daughter Deirdre, was born in March 1940.^[6]

Selected filmography[link]

• London Belongs to Me (1948)
• White Corridors (1951)
• Young Wives' Tale (1951)
• Fast and Loose (1954)
• The Good Companions (1957)
• Girls at Sea (1958)
• Operation Bullshine (1959)
• Persuasion (1960)
• Seven Keys (1961)
• What a Whopper (1961)
• A Nice Girl Like Me (1969)
• Tam-Lin (1970)
• A Room with a View (1985)
• Valmont (1989)

Selected television[link]

• The Pallisers (1977)
• The Jewel in the Crown (1984)
• Inspector Morse (1988)

Read more: Fabia Drake Biography (1904–1990) Film Reference

Autobiography[link]

• Blind Fortune published by William Kimber (1978)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Selected performances in the Theatre Archive, University of Bristol
• Fabia Drake on Internet Movie Database

Nicki Minaj
Minaj at 2010 MTV Music Awards
Background information
Birth name	Onika Tanya Maraj
Born	(1982-12-08) December 8, 1982 (age 29)[1] Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago
Origin	South Jamaica, Queens, New York, U.S.
Genres	Hip hop, R&B, pop
Occupations	Rapper, singer-songwriter
Years active	2002–present
Labels	Cash Money Records, Young Money Entertainment, Universal Republic Records, Universal Motown
Associated acts	Young Money
Website	mypinkfriday.com

Onika Tanya Maraj (born December 8, 1982), known by her stage name Nicki Minaj ( /mɪˈnɑːʒ/), is a Trinidadian-born American rapper and singer-songwriter. She was born in Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago and when she was 5 years of age she moved to the New York City borough of Queens, where she grew up.

After releasing three mixtapes between 2007 and 2009 and being signed to Young Money Entertainment in August 2009, Minaj released her debut album, Pink Friday, in November 2010. It quickly became a commercial success, peaking at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 and being certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) a month after its release.^[2][3] She became the first female solo artist to have seven singles on the Billboard Hot 100 at the same time.^[4] Her second single, "Your Love", reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs chart, making Minaj the first female artist to top the chart unaccompanied since 2002.^[5] She also became the first female artist to be included on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List.^[6] Minaj was named the 2011 Rising Star by Billboard.^[7] Her second studio album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded was released on April 3, 2012.

Early life[link]

Maraj was born in 1982^{[1][note 1]} in Saint James, a suburb of Trinidad and Tobago's capital city Port of Spain.^[8][9][10] Her parents are of mixed Indian and Afro-Trinidadian ancestry^[11][12] and she lived in Saint James with her grandmother until age five, because her parents were looking for a place to live in the Queens borough of New York City at the time. Her mother would occasionally visit, and one day, when Minaj was five, her mother picked her up to move to Queens.^[13] According to Minaj, her father drank heavily, took drugs, and once tried to kill her mother by setting the house on fire.^[14]

She attended Elizabeth Blackwell Middle School 210, where she played the clarinet.^[13] She graduated from LaGuardia High School.^[15][16] At LaGuardia, a school specializing in music and the visual and performing arts, Minaj participated in the drama program.^[15] She had initially planned to sing at LaGuardia but lost her voice on the day of the audition.^[15]

Career[link]

2007–09: Mixtapes and Young Money[link]

Minaj released her first mixtape in 2007 after releasing Playtime Is Over with Dirty Money Records. She released another mixtape on July 7, 2008, titled Sucka Free, under the label Be. On April 18, 2009, Minaj released a third mixtape and appeared in XXL magazine.^[17] She won the Female Artist of the Year award at the 2008 Underground Music Awards.^[18] Minaj released Beam Me Up Scotty, another mixtape, in April 2009 under the label of Trapaholics Records; it received positive coverage on both BET and MTV.^[19][20]

In August 2009, Minaj signed a record deal with Young Money Entertainment, with distribution from Universal Motown Records, after fellow American rapper Lil Wayne discovered her and secured the record deal.^[17][21] She then had a solo rap verse in their single "BedRock," which became a commercial success, reaching number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Minaj also appeared on "Roger That", which charted at number 56. The song, and in particular Minaj, received positive reviews from critics.^[22] Both songs were included in Young Money Entertainment's debut collaborative studio album We Are Young Money, which was released in December 2009. The album charted in the top ten on the Billboard 200, reaching number 9 and later receiving a Gold Certification by the RIAA. She was then chosen by Mariah Carey to be featured on her single and music video for "Up Out My Face". Critics praised her collaboration for helping to maintain Carey's feminine image and providing a polite track for the female R&B singer.^[23]

[edit] 2010–11: Pink Friday

Britney Spears and Minaj performing the Femme Fatale Remix of "Till the World Ends" in the Femme Fatale Tour.

After a major record label bidding war, Young Money Entertainment announced on August 31, 2009 that Minaj had been released from a 360 deal with the label in which she retains and owns all of her 360 rights – including merchandising, sponsorships, endorsements, touring and publishing.^[24] In an interview with 95.8 Capital FM, Rihanna stated that after the two collaborated on "Raining Men" from her album Loud that the duo would be teaming up together for a possible second collaboration on Minaj's Pink Friday.^[25] Hip-hop rap artist and producer Kanye West was also confirmed for the album.^[26] On August 3, 2010 Minaj revealed on a Ustream.tv channel that the album's name would be Pink Friday, in reference to Black Friday.^[27]

Pink Friday was released on November 19, 2010 in both standard and deluxe versions.^[28][29] A buzz single, "Massive Attack", was released in April.^[30] In August, Minaj released "Your Love" as the first official single from her debut album. The single peaked at 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, 7 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and topped the Rap Songs chart. Minaj became the first female artist to be included on MTV's Annual Hottest MC List^[6] and the first female artist to top the chart unaccompanied since 2002.^[31] In October 2010, Minaj became the first artist to have seven songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart simultaneously.^[4] Minaj released a joint single with The Black Eyed Peas front man, will.i.am titled, "Check It Out", which is Minaj's most successful single to date in Europe. "Right thru Me" was released September 24, 2010; the music video was released in late October. "Moment 4 Life" was released as the fourth single. The track featured Canadian rapper Drake and was released on December 7, 2010, becoming a success on the Billboard Hot 100. The single peaked at number 5 on the Hot Rap Songs.^[32] The album gained a Platinum certification in the United States a month after the release.^[3]

On January 29, 2011, Minaj appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guest, performing "Right Thru Me" and "Moment 4 Life". On February 9, 2011, it was announced that Pink Friday had reached number one on the Billboard 200 in its eleventh week on the chart.^[33] It was hinted by Simon Cowell that Minaj would join the judging panel of the American version of the The X Factor.^[34] Starting in June 2011, Minaj will be supporting Pink Friday by serving as an opening act along with Jessie and the Toy Boys and Nervo on Britney Spears' sixth concert tour, the Femme Fatale Tour, in support of her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale.^[35] She also was featured on the official remix of Spears' track "Till the World Ends" along with Spears and singer Kesha, which charted at number 3 in the US in April 2011.^[36] "Super Bass" was released from Pink Friday in May 2011, the single charted within the top 10 in many countries including; United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada and more.^[37] The song gained positive reviews from critics.^[38][39] Minaj will voice a character in the 3D animated film, Ice Age: Continental Drift, as an unknown character.^[40][41] Minaj is also featured on French DJ David Guetta's 2011 album, Nothing but the Beat on "Where Them Girls At" and "Turn Me On".

[edit] 2011–present: Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded

Minaj's second studio album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, was first announced through Twitter in November 2011 and was released on April 2, 2012 in the United Kingdom and April 3, 2012 in the United States. The album features collaborations with producers Hit-Boy, Dr. Luke, Rico Beats, Kenoe, RedOne and Oak. Cash Money A&R Joshua Berkman told HitQuarters that Minaj was extremely particular about the beats and music she used saying: "She wouldn't just rap or sing on anything – I could give her a thousand tracks and she may only like one or two."^[42] Preceding the album's release, three promotional singles were released: Roman in Moscow (which didn't make the final cut of the album), "Stupid Hoe," and "Roman Reloaded." The album's first single, "Starships", was released on February 14.^[43] "Starships" became Minaj's best-peaking single in the United Kingdom, when it reached a peak of 2. It has also peaked at number 5 on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it her second top 10 arrival following, "Super Bass" in 2011. The music video was released on April 26th, 2012.^[44]

On February 12, 2012, Minaj debuted her song "Roman Holiday" at the 54th Grammy Awards. It was the first song ever performed on the Grammy stage by a solo female rapper.^[45] The exorcism-themed performance drew a mixed response online.^[46][47]

She was featured on Madonna's twelfth studio album, titled MDNA, alongside M.I.A. on its lead single "Give Me All Your Luvin'", for which a music video has been directed by Megaforce.^[48] The trio performed the song for the Super Bowl XLVI halftime show.^[49] She was also featured on a song called "I Don't Give A", another track from the album.

She released her second single, "Right by My Side", which features Chris Brown, on March 27, 2012, after premiering on Minaj's website on March 20, 2012.^[50] Following the album's release, it peaked at number 24 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Chart. It also peaked in the lower regions of the UK singles chart, at position #101. The third single, "Beez in the Trap", which features 2 Chainz was released to U.S. Urban radio on April 24, 2012. It was premiered on DJ Flex's radio show at Hot 97 on March 20, 2012. It has peaked at number 24 on the US Billboard Rap Songs Chart.^[51] The video was premiered on April 6, 2012 on Minaj's official VEVO account.^[52]

Artistry[link]

Minaj in 2011 during Femme Fatale Tour

Image[link]

Minaj has been noted by the media for her curvaceous figure.^{[53][54][55][56]} In an interview with Vibe Minaj discussed her sexual image stating, "[w]hen I grew up I saw females doing certain things, and I thought I had to do that exactly. The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot... and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn’t have to represent the same thing."^[57] In an interview with Interview, Minaj commented on her sexual image again stating, "I made a conscious decision to try to tone down the sexiness, I want people—especially young girls—to know that in life, nothing is going to be based on sex appeal. You’ve got to have something else to go with that.”^[58] Minaj has a tattoo in Chinese characters that reads "上帝與你常在" (shàngdì yǔ nǐ cháng zài)^[59] on her left arm, meaning, "God is always with you."^[60]

Alter egos[link]

While growing up, Minaj's home life was often chaotic, with her parents constantly fighting.^[61] As a means of escape, she would create characters and live her life through them.^[61] In an interview with New York she stated, "To get away from all their fighting, I would imagine being a new person. 'Cookie' was my first identity – that stayed with me for a while. I went on to 'Harajuku Barbie,' then 'Nicki Minaj'. Fantasy was my reality."^[61]

On November 18, 2010, Minaj assumed a different alter-ego named "Nicki Teresa".^[62] Wearing a colorful scarf around her head, she went around as the "healer to her fans" as she visited them at The Garden of Dreams Foundation at Fuse studios in New York City.^[62] Minaj made an appearance on Lopez Tonight on December 6, 2010 and presented a different alter-ego for the Spanish-inspired occasion, named "Rosa" (pronounced Rrrrrosa).^[63]

In April 2012, Minaj was asked if Roman, Martha and Rosa come out in the bedroom saying “No, they don’t come out in the bedroom, but other people come out in the bedroom,” she told Big Boy during his “Backstage Breakfast,” adding, “And there’s only one person that would know who that personality is". Minaj did not name her alter-ego.^[64]

For her debut album, Minaj created another alter-ego named "Roman Zolanski".^[65] She stated that in songs like "Bottoms Up" with Trey Songz it is not Minaj rapping, but instead Roman Zolanski, and claims that Roman is her "twin brother". She claims that he was born inside her, out of rage, and becomes him when she is angry. She has also said 'He is a demon inside her'. Roman has been compared to Eminem's alter ego Slim Shady, and on the song "Roman's Revenge" from Pink Friday, Minaj and Eminem collaborate, using these alter egos.^[66] On the collaboration, she said "The new album is going to have a lot of Roman on it ... And if you're not familiar with Roman, then you will be familiar with him very soon. He’s the boy that lives inside of me. He's a lunatic and he's gay and he'll be on there a lot."^[67] Roman also has a "mother" called "Martha Zolanski",^[68] who also appeared on the song "Roman's Revenge", with a British accent,^[69] and on "Roman Holiday", singing for the first time.^[70][71] Martha appears in the video for "Moment 4 Life" where she appears to be Minaj's magical Godmother. In songs such as "All I Do Is Win (Remix)" it is Minaj rapping.^[65] Minaj stated that on her debut album, fans will get to "meet" Nicki, Roman and Onika.^[65]

Influences[link]

Minaj has stated that artists who have influenced her musical style include Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Lil Wayne, Lauryn Hill, Jadakiss, Natasha Bedingfield, Foxy Brown, Lil' Kim and Missy Elliott.^[72][73] She was also inspired by Janet Jackson,^[74] Madonna, Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Jones,^[75] M.I.A. and Cyndi Lauper.^[76][77][78]

Product and endorsements[link]

During her career, Minaj has signed contracts with a variety of corporate interests. Companies she contracted with include soft drink manufacturer Pepsi;^[79] Mattel, which produced a custom a Nicki Minaj-themed Barbie;^[80] and MAC Cosmetics, as part of an AIDS-awareness campaign in Latin America.^[81]

Personal life[link]

Minaj is a Christian, and on Christmas Day in 2011, she indicated her faith in Jesus by tweeting John 3:16.^[82][83] In addition, she states that after her father went to rehab and started attending church, "he got saved and started changing his life."^[84] Minaj states that her heroes are "God. And my mother."^[85][86]

While some songs and interviews have implied that Minaj is bisexual,^[87][88] she has said that she does not date nor have sex with women,^[15] but added in an interview with Out magazine, "I don’t date men either."^[89] In an interview with Vibe she commented, "I just embrace all people of all lifestyles and I don’t tell them they are bad people. And I say girls are beautiful and girls are sexy and they need to be told that, and if they don’t have anyone to tell them that and mean it, I’m gonna tell them that. But I feel like people always wanna define me and I don’t wanna be defined."^[90] She reiterated her dislike of being labeled in an interview with Out, saying: "The point is, everyone is not black and white. There are so many shades in the middle, and you’ve got to let people feel comfortable with saying what they want to say when they want to say it."^[89]

During an interview in the May 2010 issue of Details, Minaj was asked if she felt hip-hop was becoming more gay-friendly. She responded, "I think the world is getting more gay-friendly, so hip-hop is too. But it's harder to imagine an openly gay male rapper being embraced, people view gay men as having no street credibility. But I think we'll see one in my lifetime."^[88]

In July 2011, Minaj's cousin Nicholas Telemaque was murdered near his home in Brooklyn, New York City.^[91] Telemaque was referenced in Minaj's song "Champion" in her second studio album.^[92]

Discography[link]

• Pink Friday (2010)
• Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (2012)

Touring[link]

• Pink Friday Tour (2012)

See also[link]

Nicki Minaj portal

• List of awards and nominations received by Nicki Minaj

References[link]