How Nicki Minaj Manifested Her Friendship With Beyoncé

Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj are two of music’s most successful artists, with hundreds of millions of albums sold worldwide and countless hits between them. When the two began to work together in the 2010s, many believed that their relationship a perfect fit. Minaj confirmed that they mesh well together.

Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj | Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for TIDAL Beyoncé was in the music industry a decade before Nicki Minaj

Beyoncé first rose to prominence in the late 1990s as a part of the hitmaking girl group Destiny’s Child. In the early 2000s, the group dissolved and they went on to pursue their solo careers. Since then, of course, Beyoncé has become one of the most successful artists of all time.

Nicki Minaj, meanwhile, broke into the music industry over a decade after Beyoncé. She released her own mixtapes in the late 2000s before releasing her debut album Pink Friday in 2010. Minaj was a novelty at the time of her debut because there were no other women rappers with the same level of mainstream success at the time, much less a rapper with so much pop influence like Minaj.

Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé teamed up for the ‘Flawless’ remix

In 2014, Minaj and Beyoncé teamed up for two earth-shattering collaborations: a braggadocious remix of Beyoncé’s song “***Flawless” and the confidence-booster “Feeling Myself.”

Minaj looked back on the experience of getting recruited by Beyoncé for the “Flawless” remix in an interview with radio host Angie Martinez. “I was getting on a plane,” she recalled. “[My manager] was like, ‘Bey wants you to get on the ‘Flawless’ remix.’ And I was like, ‘No way.’”

She admitted that she balked at first because she wasn’t sure how Beyoncé regarded her. “I never knew how she felt about me as an artist, you know what I mean?” she said.

Her manager went on to tell her that she would even be willing to do a song for Minaj’s upcoming third album. “‘She said if you’ll do this, she’ll be on The Pinkprint. And I was like, ‘What?!’” Minaj remembered. “So I worked on ‘Flawless’ for a while, and when I sent it to her, her and Jay were very excited about it.’” The song ended up becoming “Feeling Myself.”

Beyoncé famously invited Minaj to Paris in 2015 to perform the “***Flawless” remix on stage with her.

Nicki Minaj manifested her performance with Beyoncé

In April 2022, Minaj took to Twitter to point out one of the funny ways that life has worked in her career. In the song “Girls Fall Like Dominoes” from her debut album Pink Friday, she bragged about being a world-renowned artist who rubs elbows with people like Beyoncé. The only issue was that she hadn’t even met Beyoncé yet, and was only rapping out of a place of confidence.

“When I wrote ‘[Girls Fall Like Dominoes]’ I didn’t have anything but an imagination and said ‘I’m out in Paris [motherf***er with] Beyoncé.’ Had never met/spoken to her. No way I’d ever work [with] her,” Minaj said frankly. “Wrapping up my third album The Pinkprint, she invited me to perform [with] her for the very first time. In Paris.”

In recent years, Minaj has staved off rumors of a reported feud with Beyoncé.

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