Nicki Minaj Trivia
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This Nicki Minaj trivia quiz has 124 free questions with answers and follows the whole arc: the girl born in Port of Spain and raised in New York, the performing-arts high school and the restaurant job, the mixtapes that got a Young Money label boss on the phone, and the debut album that opened bigger than any female rap record this century. From there it moves through the songs everyone knows, the alter egos, the film and television detours, and the run of Billboard records that made her the best-selling female rapper of all time, right up to Pink Friday 2 and the Gag City tour. The early questions are gentle enough for casual listeners; the later ones dig into chart peaks, sample sources, tour details and business ventures that only serious fans will know. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries and other primary references before publishing, so you can trust the results and argue about them with confidence.
30 of 124 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Nicki Minaj's birth name?
Onika Tanya Maraj
Onika Tanya Maraj became 'Minaj' at the insistence of an early production-deal boss; she says she fought him tooth and nail and has always hated the name.
Q 02Nicki Minaj was born in the Saint James district of which Trinidad and Tobago city?
Port of Spain
Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, was her home for only about five years: her parents had gone ahead to New York, and she left to join them there.
Q 03Who raised Nicki Minaj in Trinidad until she joined her parents in New York at about five?
Grandmother
Her grandmother brought her up in Trinidad while her parents went ahead to make a new life in New York, sending for her once they had set up home.
Q 04Which New York City borough did Nicki Minaj grow up in after arriving from the Caribbean?
Queens
Queens was home from about the age of five; there she began inventing characters in her bedroom as an escape from a violent household, the start of her alter egos.
Q 05Nicki Minaj successfully auditioned for which specialist New York City public high school?
LaGuardia
LaGuardia, nicknamed the 'Fame school' after the 1980 film about one of its forerunners, trained her as an actress rather than a musician: she studied drama there.
Q 06Before her music career took off, Nicki Minaj waited tables at a Bronx branch of which restaurant chain?
Red Lobster
She waited tables at a Red Lobster in the Bronx and has said she was fired for being rude to customers, one of several jobs she held before rapping paid.
Q 07Which longtime boyfriend of Nicki Minaj had been at her side since the Hoodstars, her early-2000s rap group?
Safaree
Safaree Samuels stayed on as her hype man when she went solo, working the stage at her shows, and the two remained a couple until 2014.
Q 08In 2004 Nicki Minaj's early group, the Hoodstars, recorded an entrance theme for a star of which sport?
Wrestling
Wrestling: WWE used the track, 'Don't Mess With', as the entrance theme of its star Victoria; the Hoodstars never landed a record deal, and Minaj went on alone.
Q 09A Brooklyn label boss first found Nicki Minaj through her page on which social network?
Myspace
Myspace is where she posted her songs; Fendi of Dirty Money heard them there in 2006, signed her to a 180-day deal and pressed her to adopt 'Minaj', a name she says she fought.
Q 10What was the title of Nicki Minaj's first mixtape, released in July 2007?
Playtime Is Over
Playtime Is Over got her noticed while she was still without a major label; a year later the Underground Music Awards named her Female Artist of the Year.
Q 11Nicki Minaj's verses on The Come Up DVD caught which rapper's attention, leading to an invitation to join Young Money?
Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne invited her into his Young Money crew after seeing the DVD, but she signed no contract then; the deal came only in 2009, after her third mixtape.
Q 12On which talk show did Nicki Minaj sing 'Super Bass' with two young girls whose cover had gone viral?
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show brought her on to sing with Sophia Grace and her cousin Rosie after the girls' YouTube cover of the song went viral.
Q 13Which 2010 Sean Garrett-featuring single was dropped as Pink Friday's lead single after underperforming?
Massive Attack
Q 21Roman's proper British mother, heard screaming at the end of 'Roman's Revenge', is which alter ego?
Martha
Martha Zolanski, Roman's prim mother, scolds him in an English accent in the outro of 'Roman's Revenge', then reappears as a fairy godmother in the 'Moment 4 Life' video.
Q 22Which invented character does Nicki Minaj call her first identity, created in childhood?
Cookie
Cookie came first: she has said she would imagine being a new person to get away from her parents' fighting, and other characters followed before she settled on Nicki Minaj.
Q 23Nicki Minaj's verse on the 2010 posse cut 'Monster' shares the track with Jay-Z, Rick Ross and which indie folk act?
Bon Iver
'Massive Attack' missed radio and chart expectations and was left off Pink Friday entirely; a leaked demo, 'Your Love', kept growing instead and became the album's lead single.
Q 14Pink Friday's lead single 'Your Love' is built on a 1995 cover of 'No More I Love You's' by which singer?
Annie Lennox
Annie Lennox took 'No More I Love You's' to number two in Britain in 1995, nine years after the Lover Speaks' original stalled at number 58; 'Your Love' borrows her version's hook.
Q 15Her 2010 single 'Check It Out' with will.i.am is built around the hook of which 1979 Buggles song?
Video Killed the Radio Star
'Video Killed the Radio Star' gives 'Check It Out' its looping piano-and-vocal hook; MTV picked the Buggles' video to open the channel's very first broadcast in 1981.
Q 16Which fellow Young Money artist is featured on the Pink Friday single 'Moment 4 Life'?
Drake
Drake raps a guest verse on 'Moment 4 Life', and its fairy-tale video ends with the two Young Money labelmates walking down the aisle and kissing as the clock strikes midnight.
Q 17Pink Friday debuted at number two behind which rapper's album, released the same day?
Kanye West
Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sold 496,000 copies that week to Pink Friday's 375,000, but in its eleventh week on the chart her album climbed to number one itself.
Q 18In 2010, Pink Friday posted the biggest opening week for a female rap album since a 1998 debut by whom?
Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill opened with more than 420,000 copies in 1998; Pink Friday's 375,000 was the best by a woman in rap since, yet it still had to settle for number two.
Q 19On 'Roman's Revenge', Nicki's alter ego trades verses with which rapper performing as his own alter ego?
Eminem
Eminem appears as his Slim Shady persona on 'Roman's Revenge', a Swizz Beatz-produced Pink Friday track on which the two trade insult-heavy verses.
Q 20The 'Pound the Alarm' video, shot in Nicki Minaj's native Trinidad, recreates which annual festival?
Carnival
Carnival falls just before Lent, so for the July 2012 shoot she recreated its street parade on home soil, with local dancers and performers in full costume.
Bon Iver's Justin Vernon sings the eerie intro of 'Monster'; he has said he had never heard of Nicki until he watched her record that verse in the studio.
Q 24Nicki Minaj performed 'Monster' as a guest at Jay-Z's hometown Home & Home concerts, held at which venue?
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium staged the return leg of a hometown swap: Jay-Z and his co-headliner played two nights at Detroit's ballpark first, then two in the Bronx, where she made a quick appearance for 'Monster'.
Q 25Her first Grammy nomination, in 2010, was for a guest verse on which rapper's 'My Chick Bad'?
Ludacris
Ludacris gave her the villain's part in the 'My Chick Bad' video: she plays the horror-film killer Freddy Krueger.
Q 26Which song did Nicki Minaj perform at the 2012 Grammys, in an exorcism-themed staging?
Roman Holiday
'Roman Holiday', from Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, got a mock-exorcism staging at the 54th Grammys in February 2012 that drew condemnation from the Catholic League's Bill Donohue.
Q 27At the 2022 MTV VMAs, Nicki Minaj performed a medley of her hits as the recipient of which career-honoring prize?
Video Vanguard Award
Video Vanguard Award night was a double shift: she also emceed the 2022 show with LL Cool J and Jack Harlow, then came back to host the 2023 VMAs on her own.
Q 28'Super Bass' took off in 2011 after which singer rapped its first verse during a radio interview?
Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift requested 'Super Bass' on a Nashville station and rapped along on air; weeks later the label promoted the bonus track to a full single, and it climbed to number three.
Q 29Which songwriter, Pitch Perfect's Cynthia Rose, co-wrote 'Super Bass' and sings its backing vocals?
Ester Dean
Ester Dean got a late-night call from Nicki, went straight to the studio, and wrote the pounding-heartbeat hook about a crush of her own.
Q 30In 2011 Nicki Minaj was an opening act on which pop star's Femme Fatale Tour?
Britney Spears
Britney Spears took her on the road in 2011, and a remix adding verses from Nicki and Kesha helped lift Spears's 'Till the World Ends' to number three in the US.