S. Samuel
Nearly a year after Hot 97's Peter Rosenberg sparked a war of words with Young Money's Nicki Minaj over his opinion of her "Starships" record, the self-proclaimed Barbie has finally come face-to-face with him.
After hearing a heartfelt apology from Rosenberg, Nicki explained her reasons for not coming out at last year’s Summer Jam concert and openly apologized to any concertgoers who attended.
“That’s cool,” Nicki said when Rosenberg apologized to her for nearly three minutes. “It’s water under the bridge. Yeah. I mean, it’s so long ago, I can’t even act like I care anymore. Like, I don’t care. I really don’t. But, I appreciate you guys having me. [The Barbz,] they don’t like you at all. They hate you. … This is the thing, in hindsight, I should have just come — I should have just did the show because I’ve never allowed anyone — make me let my fans down. And even if it wasn’t a Nicki Minaj fan, just a fan in general, somebody who was there who paid to see the show, I think in hindsight, I should have just came out for my own town, especially, and they shouldn’t have been brought into whatever we were going through. So I wish I would have come out and did the show and I apologize for not coming out and doing the show because they had nothing to do with that.” (Hot 97)
She also explained why Rosenberg’s comments struck a chord with her as opposed to the same criticism coming from other Hot 97 personalities like Angie Martinez or Funkmaster Flex.
“I get it, that’s what you do, but to me, I just don’t know your résumé,” Nicki added. “I never found you funny, I never found you entertaining, I never found you smart, I just found you annoying because, you know, I grew up in New York, well, I’ve grown up on Hot 97. I know Angie and I know Flex and Mister Cee and all these people and whether they like me or whether we get along, I just know their résumé, so that’s why it was so easy for me to pick up the phone and talk to Flex like, ‘What the f*ck are you talking about?’ But like with you, I was like, ‘Who are you?’ To me, you don’t have enough of a résumé to make those comments but you know, you did, and it is what it is. For whatever reason, our paths were meant to cross like that.” (Hot 97)
Back in December, Peter admitted he hoped to one day have a chance to speak to Nicki face-to-face.
“I had nothing to do with this [holiday] concert personally and I doubt that she would want it to have much to do with me personally, but it is definitely a dead issue on my end. Not even to be polite or political–I sincerely like Nicki’s rapping a lot. She has only had a few songs that I disliked and one of them happened to be the one that caused all of this. But The station still supports her and always will…I really hope we get to talk one day and have a laugh about the whole thing. It is not that serious in the grand scheme of things! We both just love hip hop in our own ways.” (Gothamist)
Last year’s Summer Jam comments even sparked a heated reaction out of Young Money boss Lil Wayne.
“Lil Wayne thinks that I don’t show respect for women,” said Rosenberg live on the air. “Wayne is right about something–Women are mothers, are sisters, are daughters. But I have a question. Is me giving my opinion that one song is wack, is that showing a lack of respect for women? … I don’t know if Weezy F. should be giving me lessons on respect for women. Weezy F.–the F doesn’t stand for feminist, alright. … Clearly the logical thing is let’s get the word of respect for women from the woman at the center of it all…clearly Nicki Minaj, she understands respect for women. Instead of talking to everyone else about Hot 97, how about the good people at Young Money just come on down and come see us and talk to us?” (Hot 97)
Check out Nicki Minaj & Peter Rosenberg’s chat:
