S. Samuel
As this week marks the one-year anniversary of the release of Nicki Minaj's platinum-selling debut, Pink Friday, and SOHH recently spoke with DJ Holiday about the star's commercial success.
Holiday, who worked with Minaj before she was a Young Money artist, says he always knew she had true star power.
“It was a blessing to work with her early on in her career. I always kinda knew in the back of my head that there was something different about her. The day I met her, we got in the studio and worked together [and] I just knew she was it. I meet artists everyday but I knew she would be special.” (SOHH)
Holiday also spoke on Minaj’s qualities as an artist.
“There wasn’t just one thing that made her stand out, it was everything. I was like, “Yo, if somebody gets behind this girl she’s outta here.” She can rap, you know what I mean? You meet alotta female rappers and most of them are saying the same things, but she wasn’t like that. She was talking about other things and it just made sense to me. She’s my friend and we still talk every once in a while and I just wish her nothing but blessings.”(SOHH)
Earlier this month, rapper Big Sean reminisced on his time spent with Nicki while recording the music video for remix to his single, “Dance (A$$)”.
“I hit her up and she said she loved that song and she listened to it all the time with her tour dancers. Two days after I asked her, she killed it, sent it back and told me she wanted to shoot the video for it. When she came on the set, I was like, “Man she is fine as sh*t.” D*mn, she look good. There was alotta chemistry, right? [laughs] Hell yeah. We go together good. That’s my favorite video strictly because of her.”(SOHH)
Veteran artist MC Lyte has also given Minaj her props, saying that Nicki’s brand runs deeper than rap.
“Nicki is coming out to win. She’s not thinking of the block. She’s not just thinking of the city. So she’s able to handle so many areas of what it takes right now to be an international star. So hats off to everybody that’s doing it but, I see the vision that Nicki sees for herself that people probably didn’t see before.” (VH1)
Check out Nicki as she does her thing alongside Big Sean in the remix video “Dance A$$”:
