It’s been a few months since Nicki Minaj graced her Barbz with new music. While her guest appearance on Meghan Trainor’s new album, Treat Myself, isn’t a complete comeback, Nicki’s verses on “Nice To Meet Ya” makes it sound like (in her mind, at least) she hasn’t left her spot atop of the rap game. “I pop off because I am the reigning champ / please, no comparisons because you know that they can’t / had to cut the grass there were snakes in the camp,” she raps.
Despite calling out “snakes,” the song is actually a sweet tune about self-empowerment and asserting oneself (while still being appropriate for a DJ to spin at a club). Nicki combined her fierceness and smooth bars with Meghan’s sugary, self-affirming pop to accomplish this!
Even though Nicki tweeted in September that she had “decided to retire & have my family,” it hasn’t been a complete and total retirement. Later that month she appeared PnB Rock’s “Fendi” (alongside Murda Beatz). Two months after saying she was stepping away, she released her collaboration with Karol G, “Tusa.” While on the latter track, Nicki practiced her Spanish before launching into a verse about how she was still “the baddest b**ch” you’ve ever met.” While it’s likely that these projects were already in the works when Nicki announced her retirement (Meghan’s been releasing promotional singles from this new album since last September) the return continued to stoke the Barbz’ hopes that Nicki’s comeback was imminent.
#NiceToMeetYa featuring @NICKIMINAJ tomorrow at 7am PST @youtubemusic @Vevo 💖 Come chat with me and watch the premiere live https://t.co/QagqV8lwZX! pic.twitter.com/Il3pFMepMd
— Meghan Trainor (@Meghan_Trainor) January 31, 2020
Nicki’s feature comes days after she made her first major public appearance in months. Nicki was advertised to appear at Mr. Jones’ in Miami on Jan. 29. While there, she wore a skintight gray jumpsuit, which she paired with open-toed heels and cotton candy pink hair. In one image, which she posted to her Instagram, she got cozy next to her husband, Kenneth Petty. Though she didn’t perform, the fact that she was attending an event at such a noted hip-hop establishment only hyped up her fans.
A month after announcing her retirement, Nicki clarified that the comments were referring to her fifth studio album. “When I posted that retirement tweet, I knew that I had music that was already recorded that was still going to come out,” Nicki explained to The Shade Room. “So, the retirement was kind of talking about my album like meaning like, do I want to go back and record my fifth album? That’s what I was talking about, but I knew that of course features—I always get asked to do features and I like features. So, it was really about my fifth album.”