S. Samuel
New York's Hot 97 radio personality Angie Martinez recently reflected on some of her most notable interviews since the start of her career including her talks with music rivals Lil' Kim and Nicki Minaj two years ago.
Despite giving them open forums to speak, Martinez said neither Kim or Minaj wanted a third party to lessen or even potentially end their feud.
“Nicki and Lil Kim, I hate that. I tried to handle that the same way. Both of them are grown women, they are each entitled to their own opinion and their feelings. I’m not there to put my feelings all up in it,” Martinez explained in an interview. “They’re going to exist because I’m doing the interview so you may hear some of how I feel but I’m not overly putting my opinion in it. I may challenge them sometimes if they say something but ultimately I’m giving them a forum to say how they feel. But it’s awkward, I wish they would get along, it’d be better energy for everybody. Sometimes people don’t want a mediator. In the case of Nicki and Kim, they don’t want a mediator. They don’t want someone to squash it. I would have been happy to, that would have been great. That’s not why they were there, either one of them. They wanted to be heard and I let them be heard, I can’t really do much more than that but really, it would be great if they did, it’s no fun. It’s not comfortable for anybody.” (Complex)
In November 2010, Minaj talked to Martinez and labeled Kim a hip-hop bully.
“It’s one of those moments where you say, ‘don’t play with me,’ because I respect you, I love you, I’ve said it in every interview time and time again, and if that’s not good enough with you mama, then it’s something deep rooted in you. Something is bothering you inside. That’s your insecurity bothering you. [If] it’s not Nicki Minaj, it would have been any girl that started poppin’. She picked a fight with Foxy [Brown], then she picked a fight with Eve, then she picked a fight with Remy [Ma], then it was Ms. [Voletta] Wallace, then it was Nicki Minaj. Every time you in the news is ’cause you gettin’ at somebody. Where’s your music? Put your music out. When I see your name on Billboard, that’s when I’ll respond to you. Other than that, goodbye.” (Hot 97)
A month later, the Queen Bee jokingly told Angie how much a collabo with Minaj would cost.
“I would do a song with her… for the right price. I’m a hustler. 7 million? Maybe,” Kim said. “The girl is not as stupid as people think that she is…She know exactly what she’s doing to make people feel sorry for her; that’s her thing. She’s a very contradicting creature, and I noticed that about her…God made it so that I can have my way back in and really represent the right way in this game for the females… She wanted to be the only one out there. Just because I been in the game for a minute don’t mean it’s over for me, baby. At the end of the day, I’m not going nowhere…” (Hot 97)
Kim’s one-time rap rival Foxy Brown previously weighed in on the back-and-forth disses.
“Had [Kim] let the people say, ‘Oh [Nicki], you’re trying to be Kim, you’re a fake Kim,’ then it doesn’t come directly from her,” Foxy explained in an interview. “But when you’re using that as a platform to bring your new album out, that’s like, ‘Oh my God, wait a minute.’ I don’t condone it at all; I don’t think it’s cute. Nicki clearly drew from both Kim and me. And she hasn’t been disrespectful to me in any way — I haven’t heard her be disrespectful toward anybody else but Kim. And at some point, it’s like, O.K., Kim, you’ve had a problem with Foxy, you’ve had a problem with Nicki, you’ve had a problem with Faith [Evans], with Charli [Baltimore], with everybody. It’s like, enough already. I choose to stay out of it. Put out great music, and that’s that.” (Billboard)
Check out Lil’ Kim & Nicki Minaj’s Hot 97 interviews below:
