Nicki Minaj and the barbz, her large and loyal fanbase, rejoiced and celebrated the 10 year anniversary of the release of Pink Friday, Minaj’s debut studio hip-hop and pop album on Nov. 20.
Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty, Minaj’s real name, took to social media to commemorate the celebration of such a big milestone in her career. Maraj changed her Twitter page layout, including her profile picture to show images from her album photoshoot. She also tweeted for barbz to “get [their] outfits ready for the virtual celebration,” on Nov. 18, which caused excitement amongst her fans that have been supporting her since she’s been putting out mixtapes like Beam Me Up Scotty.
She dropped a new version of the album called, Pink Friday (The Complete Edition), which features the original tracks from the regular edition, plus “BedRock” by Young Money and “Roman’s Revenge” featuring Lil Wayne.
Maraj talked a lot to her fans, answering questions they had about the album. She also recommended a lot of songs for her fans to relisten to like “Moment 4 Life.”
Along with heavy interaction with fans, Twitter created a special pink hair emoji to accompany the hashtags: #Barbz, #PinkFridayAnniversary, #PinkFriday and #NickiMinaj. The emoji is reminiscent of the wig that Maraj was known for and on the album cover.
Additionally, Maraj released exclusive 10th anniversary merch on her website.
The artist said fans can expect her long awaited docuseries to be released on HBO Max soon. “It’s gonna give you guys a raw, unfiltered look at my personal life and my professional journey,” she said. “I love that this series not only provides an all-access glimpse at one of the most iconic musicians of our generation; it also profiles the brave woman behind the artist, Onika,” Michael John Warren said, a director that has worked with Maraj on her two previous documentratries, according to Variety.
Maraj has a lot to celebrate. This album helped her solidify and assert her spot as one of the most successful female rappers ever. Although Pink Friday debuted at No. 2 on Billboard 200, it moved to No. 1 on Billboard 200 on Feb. 19, 2011, and spent 73 weeks on the chart.
This allowed Maraj to become the first female rapper to get a No. 1 album in history. “I felt like I had something to prove to everyone who said a female rapper could not make an album unless she was talking about her p—-,” she said, per Vibe. This made her go “above and beyond” in proving her critics wrong, which she felt she did.
Pink Friday, one of Minaj’s successful albums, was nominated for “Best Rap Album” at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2011, and landed her a nomination for “Best Rap Performance” for one of the album’s singles, “Moment 4 Life.” The academy also mentioned that Maraj had 5 Top 40 singles from this album.
This album presented Maraj the opportunity to create “Nicki Minaj: My Time Now,” which was released on MTV in 2010, that gave an inside look at Maraj’s creative process and coping with fame around the time she was working on the album.
Pink Friday was unexpected to some because some thought Maraj would stick to her heavy rap style as she had shown in features like in “Monster,” but she also embedded elements of pop to try to make the album have commercial appeal. “Minaj aims for a Rihanna-style crossover approach…,” Rolling Stone reported.
The features on the album also showed that Maraj was getting recognition among her peers. Features included Eminem, Kanye West, Rihanna, etc, which made her album a standout. She sold over 375,000 album copies in the first week, Rolling Stone said.
“On Pink Friday, she proved that her music was not just for the streets of Queens or the mixtape aficionados. It was for the world,” Rashad Grove, a reporter for udiscovermusic, said.
