Queen Latifah Speaks On Nicki Minaj + So Far Gone EP Sells 72,104 1st Week

One of the females that’s being hailed as the torchbearer for the next generation of hip-hop is Nicki Minaj, who’s making a huge splash in the rap world. What’s your opinion on her as an artist and what she’s doing with the genre?

I like everything I’ve heard from her so far. What I do like about her is number one, I got mad love for Lil Wayne. He’s bringing her up, he’s giving her an opportunity to come up through his camp. She’s showing and proving. Eve did the same thing. She spit with every dude in the Ruff Ryders camp, and that showed that she had the courage, gumption, talent and ability to be in this game. But then the records that she made were great records that talked about things that females wanted to talk about, and they were hit records. Her first album was platinum, so to me, when we do get on, we make a big splash because there aren’t that many of us. We stand out from the crowd. I’m hoping that there’s not just Nicki Minaj, but that there’s someone else out there, the next whoever, that’s waiting to have that same opportunity that she’s getting right now. But God bless her, I hope she blows up, because that’s what we need right now. We need that female energy in the game.