All around the world, people are jamming to “Bottom’s Up” by Trey (2010), featuring Nicki Minaj.  “Bottom’s Up” peaked at number 24 on the Billboard charts, and it was Nicki Minaj’s excerpt in the song which transformed her from being a star in the rapping world, to being a star in the mainstream world of music.

On February 9, 2011 Nicki Minaj’s debut album (Pink Friday), captured the number one position on the Billboard 200 albums chart, and it only took 11 weeks for her to get there.  Minaj is originally from Trinidad (born in 1984), and was raised in her early years by her grandmother and then moved to New York to live with her parents, there she witnessed a lot of domestic disputes between her folks, for example, Minaj disclosed her father tried to kill her mother at one point by burning the house down.  Obviously, she didn’t live the childhood dream, but she found a healthy way to cope with the family baggage.

To escape the constant fighting of her parents, Nicki began rapping and creating characters (her alter-egos: Roman Zolanski and Harajuku Barbie) to avoid the negativity around her.   Her music career began in 2007 when she made several mix tapes, and was signed into a label.  Fast-forward to 2011, Nicki Minaj shared her characters and rapping talent with the world on January 29, 2011 as a musical guest and actress on Saturday Night Live to promote her debut album.   This was a very smart move because shortly after performing on SNL, her music career catapulted into numero uno status.