Nicki Minaj’s chart-topping “Anaconda” was just a joke

Next month, rapper Nicki Minaj will grace the cover of Complex Magazine in promotion of her upcoming album, The Pinkprint. In the exclusive interview, Minaj talked about a lot of things—from her multiple personalities to having babies to being compared to Jay-Z with the title of The Pinkprint. As the author Lauren Nostro puts it, “No one is going to tell you what Nicki Minaj is doing except Nicki Minaj.”

While Minaj discussed how The Pinkprint is going to be her most personal album yet and how being on the road has had a damaging impact on her relationship with her family, perhaps the most intriguing concession was that the chart-topping hit, “Anaconda,” which samples Sir Mix-a-Lot‘s “Baby Got Back”, was created as a joke.

 Nicki Minaj’s chart-topping “Anaconda” was just a joke

“I wanted to create a song that embraced curvy women. I wanted to be sexual but be playful with it. And I wanted it to be so melodic that even if you don’t understand English you could still go along with the melody and you would have no idea about all the raunchy shit I’m saying—I get a kick out of that. It was simple to write. I just created the melody and then I let the words happen. I started laughing when I said, “Boy toy named Troy.” [Laughs.] That whole song, I was just being dumb. It was a joke. My biggest thing was seeing how my girlfriends Sherika and Thembi were going to react. If they don’t like a song, they’ll be like, “No.” As soon as they walked in the studio, we were laughing and having fun. I thought, if we’re doing this, then everybody is going to have fun with it.“

Even the artwork came about unplanned. Minaj said:

“The artwork was not premeditated. I was shooting the “Anaconda” video and I had my photographer there taking pictures. When I was about to shoot my next scene, I asked to see the pictures he’d taken. He went through five or six and that one came up, and I was like, ‘[Gasps.] Oh my God. Yo, that picture is crazy!’ What made me excited about it was that people hadn’t seen me do a picture like that in years.”

The artist cited the reason for foregoing such revealing shots as professionalism—she had to prove herself in the industry as an artist and a lyricist before doing any sort of shoot that might damage the professional, Boss Girl in the Boys’ Club image that she has worked over the past four years to create. Even the sexy-dancing and hand-slapping when Drake tries to touch her in the “Anaconda”, according to Minaj, were totally impromptu.

Though Minaj has not been playing in the Little Leagues for quite some time now, “Anaconda” is definitely a reclamation of independence in the industry:

“I’ve proven that I’m an MC. I’m a writer; I’m the real deal, so if I want to take sexy pictures, I can. I’m at the level in my career and in my life now where I can do whatever the hell I want to.”