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People who know her only as the singer behind the ubiquitous ditty “Super Bass” might have already written her off as the next Kelis. (Who? Exactly.) But there’s more to Nicki Minaj than meets the eye. Her greatest work yet isn’t the song that has inspired starlets like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez to try rap; it’s not even on her album. Her strongest showing to date appears on Kanye West’s controversial “Monster”, with rapper Rick Ross noting Minaj’s genius as a lyricist.

Meet Onika

Born Onika Tanya Maraj, Nicki Minaj was born and raised in St. James in Trinidad and Tobago by her grandmother. Her parents were then attempting to find a suitable home in Queens, New York. Minaj would eventually move to the United States at age five.

She may have idealized the move, but her life in Queens was far from peachy. Minaj lived with an alcoholic and drug-addicted father who once burned down their house in an attempt to murder her mother. The difficulties of her home life took a toll on her young psyche, causing teenage Minaj to get mixed up in trouble and random brawls.

The career

Despite her troubled youth, Minaj never lost sight of her own goal: stardom. She graduated from the drama program of prestigious LaGuardia High School, but was equally interested in the musical arts. Dirty Money CEO Fendi discovered Minaj through her MySpace page, which was more than enough to convince him that this young girl was a potential hit.

Rapper Lil’ Wayne signed Minaj to his Young Money label, signaling the beginning of her career. In 2010 – after several mixtapes and collaborations – Minaj finally released her debut album with Young Money, entitled Pink Friday. The album landed on number one on the Billboard 200 on its eleventh week.

Photo from Wikipedia

Fashion independence

Nicki Minaj has been alternately hailed and criticized for her fashion choices, especially since any form of wacky sartorial choices these days is viewed as an attempt to copy Lady Gaga. But Minaj is not out to copy anyone; the girl literally enjoys dressing up, but perhaps not in the way that most men expect from female rappers.

She may dress provocatively on occasion, but Minaj prefers to dress as wackily as she feels, without fear of alienating the “male fan base”. As far as Minaj is concerned, she’s paid her sex bomb dues. In an interview with Vibe, she said: “When I grew up I saw females doing certain things, and I thought I had to do that exactly. The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot… and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn’t have to represent the same thing.”

Minaj now refuses to talk about the racy cover art of her second mixtape, and has refuted earlier attempts to “spice up” her career with talks of bisexuality. In short, Minaj is dressing up out of “lunacy”, not out of any efforts to sex up her image and impress critics.

Photo from Wikipedia

Feminism rocks

Minaj has repeatedly mentioned that her outspoken stance on feminism stems from her and her mother’s experience with her abusive father. Equally difficult was the gender imbalance in hip-hop; most of her male rapper friends wanted her on their tracks, but to sing backup, not for rap collaboration. Incensed, Minaj insisted on laying down her own verses, eventually finding a way to get noticed.

The same stubborn insistence fuels Minaj’s fashion statements. With her increasing fame, Minaj has found it less necessary to rely on the usual “sexy” outfits that other female rappers (e.g. Lil’ Kim) seemed to favor. Her style can commonly be described as the ultimate Man Repeller move – fashion for fashion’s sake, never for attraction. In fact, she might not be trying to attract anyone at all, considering her spotty and colorful outfit worn to New York Fashion Week, where Minaj sat beside ice dowager Anna Wintour.

Minaj seated beside Anna Wintour at Fashion Week (Time Magazine)

I’m a Barbie girl

Further proof of Minaj’s undying stubbornness is her insistence on dressing up as a blonde Barbie, complete with the bright, blonde wig and ten-thousand-gigawatt pink lipstick. Even her makeup is testament to her refusal to accept two words: “you can’t”.

Minaj has been adamant about playing by her own rules for years. The young rapper reminisced that she never took no for an answer, and would write down a list of reasons why she should be allowed something her mother had already refused.

The same principle applies to her sartorial choices. Blonde hair, bright clothes, and bright pink lipstick – all of these have been named fashion no-no’s for people with darker skin complexion at some point, yet Nicki Minaj breaks all of them and looks fabulous doing so.

Minaj calls MAC Pink Nouveau her favorite lipstick, though the color has been deemed unsuitable for darker skin tones given its blue undertones. But Minaj was undeterred, using the lipstick shade every expert deemed unsuitable for her, and hitting it way out of the ballpark.

So successful was Minaj’s bright and vivacious look that MAC ended up creating a limited edition lipstick for her, named after her first album, Pink Friday.

MAC’s limited edition Pink Friday lipstick (from Temptalia)

Style icon?

Not quite. Minaj may look great with her wacky ensembles and kooky hair color, but it’s not something that’s entirely relatable. Sure, women may go crazy for her bright pink lips, but it’s not everyday that you find a way to translate a Nicki Minaj look into something you can wear to the office or when running errands. Sometimes, you can’t even wear these looks to the club.

Perhaps the key here is that Nicki Minaj is merely dressing for herself, and fans of her idealistic view of fashion would do well to follow suit – not with the Frankenstein hair, but with the bold, don’t-mess-with-my-fashion attitude.