Watch Nicki Minaj Throw Major Shade at Iggy Azalea
[There was a video here]
While accepting her BET Award for Best Female Hip Hop Artist tonight, Nicki Minaj made a none too subtle jab at one of her fellow nominees in the category, Iggy Azalea. You can see why: This is the first year since Nicki Minaj became a household name that she conceivably could have lost in the category, thanks to the obscene success of Iggy Azalea and her single, "Fancy." Nicki was looking to take home the category's trophy for the fifth year in a row. Would the BET powers that be who arbitrarily re-reward the rich, famous, and talented allow her to win again? That's about as close to suspense as you'll find on one of these shows.
Whether she is threatened, pissed that an even bigger drag queen than her is stealing some of her shine, legitimately insulted by Iggy Azalea's hip-hop for dummies, putting on a great show (this was the last of the night's categories for a reason), or some blend of these scenarios, Nicki let Iggy know that she's got her eye on her without even looking in her direction. That's shade.
"What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it," said Nicki Minaj with Nicki Minaj's mouth in words that originated in Nicki Minaj's head.
It's widely rumored that Iggy Azalea uses ghostwriters, including her mentor T.I. That alone makes Nicki's words evidence of shade, but there's more because then she did this:
And then she did this:
And then she said, "And no, no, no, no, no, no shade, um..."
(Yes shade.)
And then she did this:
And then she said, "No, no, no shade, no, no, no shade."
(Yes shade.)
After talking about her process and the fact that she'd rather die than be written about on TMZ for having called an ambulance (yeah, I don't know), Nicki took another apparent shot at Iggy toward the end of her speech by saying, "I hope and pray that BET continues to honor authenticity," which are rich words for a superhuman pop goddess who is now better known for her EDM-style audience-pandering Top 40 hits, day-glow wigs, and endless endorsement deals, than she is for the relatively straightforward hip-hop of her pre-fame mixtapes, but whatever. This was still fun in a Roxanne Shanté kind of way.