Episode 4 (super explicit!) of Queen Radio, hosted by Beats 1, streamed live this afternoon. In the spirit of award-show season, it appeared that Nicki Minaj had an award for just about everyone. The rapper’s show, that ran just over two hours, included some nice awards like “Queen of the Week”, granted in no particular order to Harriet Tubman, Ariana Grande, Normani and Aretha Franklin. Minaj caught some heat via Twitter as mentioned by the Huffington Post, for her self-comparison to the revered abolitionist Harriet Tubman. She honored the American hero nonetheless, as she did the late Aretha Franklin (like on episode 3). Normani and Ariana caught nods for being ‘that b*tch’ and ‘fashion lifesaver’, respectively. The show also awarded some not-so-nice awards like Cock Sucka of The Day and Hoe N*gga of The Week.
Specifically, Hoe N*gga of The Week went to Travis Scott, who Nicki so affectionately refers to as ‘auto-tune man’. Her notorious beef with the Astroworld star seems no deeper than the number one chart spot, however, that cuts pretty deep for Nicki.
“Hoe N*gga of the Week Award is Travis Scott!” the self-proclaimed Queen begins. “Travis Scott on Thursday, when he realized the Queen was about to have the number one album in America… he and his label decided to have Kylie and baby Stormi put up a tour pass. He had her go and post and say “Hey, me and Stormi can’t wait to see y’all”. How are you selling something that does not have anything to do with your album but is counted on Billboard as album sales? But what we’re not going to do is have this auto-tune man coming up here, selling f*cking sweaters and telling y’all he sold half a million f*cking albums- because he didn’t. Its a lot of rappers behind the scenes that want to talk about it and their scared. But sweetheart I’m not scared- I’m legendary in these streets. Okay? Now. Travis Scott you better– Travis Scott you played your-f*cking-self also for having your f*cking friend come on the internet talking up for you. You stupid f*ck. You’re a f*cking man, you got your homeboy talking for you and you got your girlfriend posting tour passes saying so sold albums, stop it! Knock it the f*ck off.”
These ‘passes’ that Nicki was referencing did a pretty number, according to her. “He sold 50 thousand of these,” she relayed via Twitter. “I spoke to him. He knows he doesn’t have the #1 album this week.” Her issue with bundling should warrant a look in the mirror, being that the Minaj camp also bundles their online merchandise sales towards album sales numbers. In this digital age of music, while it is difficult to quantify what number one actually means (Most streams? Most physical copied sold? Most airplay?) it is definitely interesting to see artists duke it out for what they believe is rightfully theirs. Perhaps Nicki’s f-bomb tirade is inspired by her own award, not the VMA, but Charlemagne’s Donkey Of The Day award. Perhaps Nicki is continuing forward in her plight for artists against industry debauchery. Or as she sums it all up, maybe it’s just for the entertainment.
