Nicki Minaj is back – again! Months after dropping a pair of songs with Lil Baby, Nicki restarted her comeback with her new song, “Super Freaky Girl.” The track features some racy lyrics, and the second verse ends with a reference to Rihanna. “Get me rocky ASAP, n****a, word to Rih,” Nicki sings. Interestingly, both Nicki and Rihanna have been romantically linked to Drake in the past.
Nicki first teased this new music on July 12 (the same day that Cardi B dropped the video for “Hot Sh-t,” oddly enough). In the first taste of the track, Nicki posed seductively across an orange chaise lounge before winking, twerking, and flipping the camera off. “I can lick it, I can ride it while you slip it and slide it,” she rapped over the sample. “I can do all them little tricks/ You can smack it you can grip it you can go down and kiss it/ Every time he leave me ‘lone he always tell me he miss me/ He wanna F, R, E A K.”
The verse was paired with an instantly-recognizable sample – that of Rick James’ “Super Freak,” which was also used for MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This.” Nicki’s use of the sample echoed her 2014 song, “Anaconda,” where she prominently sampled another early-1990s hip-hop track, Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.” Nicki’s “Anaconda” debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, and reached No. 2 on the chart. As of 2022, the song has been certified double-Platinum by the RIAA.
In 2018, Nicki also revisited the 90s when she interpolated “Just Playing (Dreams)” — a song from The Notorious B.I.G.’s 1994 debut, Ready To Die — for her track, “Barbie Dreams.” The song charted, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 before being certified Gold by the RIAA. It was also a critical success, with many lauding Nicki for delivering, as Pitchfork wrote, a “flamethrowing pink slip delivered with a wink. Positioning some of rap’s biggest names in her crosshairs.”
“Super Freaky Girl” continued a busy 2022 for Nicki. She released “Do We Have A Problem?” with Lil Baby in February, and the song peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 before going Gold. She followed that with “Bussin,” a second track with Lil Baby, one that topped out at No. 20 on the Hot 100. Nicki joined Coi Leray for “Blick Blick” in March, the same month she appeared alongside Fivio Foreign for “We Go Up.”
These recent musical ventures come after a quiet 2021 for Nicki – at least, musically. She released her 2009 mixtape, Beam Me Up Scotty, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. The track “Seeing Green,” featuring Drake and Lil Wayne, reached No. 12 on the Hot 100.
Personally, the year was full of heartache and controversy for Nicki. Her father was killed in a hit an run accident. “I can say it has been the most devastating loss of my life,” she said in a message posted in May (h/t Yahoo), months after the fatal February incident. In September, Nicki said she skipped the 2021 Met Gala because she didn’t want to get the COVID-19 vaccine. After saying she hadn’t “done enough research” on the vaccine, she tweeted a story that caused an uproar.
“My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen,” she tweeted. “His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied.”
Afterward, many condemned Nicki for spreading COVID-19 “misinformation.” The Trinidad & Tobago health minister also said that no one reported a case of swollen testicles due to the COVID-19 vaccine. At that time, Nicki’s husband, Kenneth Petty, pled guilty to failing to register as a sex offender when he relocated to California. Kenneth was convicted of first-degree attempted rape in 1995 and was facing a maximum 10-year prison sentence. He ultimately got three years of probation, and one year of home detention.
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