Nicki Minaj is back!
The rapper took some time away from the spotlight earlier this year, but she’s back on the scene again, entering our consciousness with a November cover for Marie Claire magazine.
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She gets regal in a three-quarter profile shot for the cover, but strips down to fur and lingerie for a sexy spread pic that is sure to garner more interest.
And it’s not hard to see why! LOLz!
The rapper also touches on various issues, including her role models, her dreams for the future, and the double standards she faces as a woman of color.
Read on for HIGHlights!
On the double standard regarding women of color and nude photos: “When Kim Kardashian‘s naked picture came out, [Sharon Osbourne] praised it, and my fans attacked her for being such a hypocrite. So it wasn’t trashy and raunchy when a white woman did it, but it was when a black woman did it? It’s quite pathetic and sad, but that is my reality, and I’ve gotten accustomed to just shutting it down.”
On her biggest influencers: “I don’t need to read a book about [business]. I can look at someone’s career and just pinpoint the dos and the don’ts, and the one person I’ve done that with for my entire career was Jay Z. He did such a great job being an authentic street guy and a businessman, and I was like, Why aren’t there women doing that, taking the success from rap and channeling it into their empire? I felt like anything he could do, I could do.”
On women dealing with the deaths of their loved ones: “We tend to not remember the black women who are mourning these men and who are thinking, Oh, my God, what am I going to tell my child now about where his father is, and the struggle it is for black women to then move on after they lose their husband or their boyfriend … The strong women in these inner cities often go unnoticed … no one really ever puts a hand out to them.”
On working with Beyonc├â┬⌐: “Every time Bey and I do something together, I see how women are inspired, and it has nothing to do with how we look. It has to do with how we are owning who we are and telling other women you should be the boss of your own career and the brains behind your life or your decisions or your art. I just love that feeling.”
On the personal goals of today’s young women: “Nowadays, I feel like [young women] see marrying into money├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥I think that’s a big thing now. I don’t want that to be a woman’s goal in life. I want your goal in life to be to become an entrepreneur, a rich woman, a career-driven woman. You have to be able to know that you need no man on this planet at all, period, and he should feel that, because when a man feels that you need him, he acts differently.”
Check out the cover and an additional photo in the gallery (above)!
[Image via Marie Claire.]