Nicki Minaj once opened up about her early innings as a rapper and how she started writing at the young age of 11 years by trying to out-rap her neighbor. Read on!

Nicki Minaj is one of the most successful female rappers of her time. She has been known to rap fast and with a huge volume of lyrics at her disposal. Her quality as a rapper is quite remarkable as many rappers try to cop out with over-reliance on beat and repetition of lyrics rather than the density of their poetry. But Nicki Minaj remarkably stands out because of her lyricism.

Nicki Minaj’s early innings as a rapper

While appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2018 in order to promote her album Queen, the Barbie World singer revealed how she honed her skills as a rapper.

For her, it was the desire to show up to her next door neighbor, who herself was a rapper. The young singer wanted to shock her neighbor with her rapping skills to let her know that she wasn’t the only rapper around. So she would write lyrics in her free time and then practice her skills to belt out a smooth and lyrically rich rap.

“I was like 11, and I wanted to show the girl next door, because she was like a rapper and she goes that she is so much better than me, so I wrote a rap so that I can show her that I am better” the rapper had revealed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

The young rapper quickly went to her neighbor, passionately rapping in front of the house thinking she would blow her mind with her skills. All she got in return was a nonchalant response from the girl next door.

Despite that the rapper stuck to her skills and went to improve them so much that she eventually became a Grammy winning artist.

Nicki Minaj and Stephen Colbert swap professions

In the same appearance, Stephen Colbert highlighted the fact that Nicki Minaj’s dense lyricism is something that is very rare and not an easy feat to pull off while rapping. Thus, he suggested a fun game to lighten up the show.

“I am gonna read one of your lyrics and you are gonna read this monologue that I recently performed and we’ll see who does it better,” Stephen Colbert had challenged Nicki Minaj.

The talk show host went on to slowly recite the lyrics from one of Minaj’s songs with the rapper helpfully providing a beat, while the rapper read out one of his monologues about Donald Trump.