How to Rap Like Nicki Minaj

Last Updated: May 13, 2021

Becoming a rapper takes a lot of work, and becoming a rapper as great as Nicki Minaj will take a little something extra. But there is a way you can learn to study Nicki's style, improve your basic rhyming skills, and learn to rap like Nicki does. Read on to find out how.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Learning Nicki's Style

1
Listen to lots of Nicki. Want to learn to rap like Nicki Minaj? The easy first step: Listen to her music like you're getting paid to do it. Treat listening to Nicki's raps and rhymes like it's your job. Study her new stuff, her old stuff, and her best feature verses on other people's songs.
- Nicki's five studio albums are:
  - Pink Friday
  - Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded
  - Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded: The Re-Up
  - The Pinkprint
  - Queen
- Nicki's official mixtape releases include:
  - Beam Me Up Scotty
  - Playtime is Over
  - Sucka Free
2
Listen to Nicki's influences. If you want to dig a little deeper to learn how Nicki crafted her sound, it's good to listen to the same people that she listened to. If you're a super fan, you owe it to yourself to check out her favorite artists, as well as her stuff.^{[1]
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Research source} She's even had Twitter feuds with a few of these people, she's got so much in common with them. Nicki was most influenced by the following pop and rap artists:
- Madonna
- Lil Kim
- Missy Elliot
- Eve
- Janet Jackson
- Trina
- TLC
- Lil Wayne
- Cyndi Lauper
- Enya
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3
Study Nicki's lyrics. The most important part of rapping like Nicki is studying her lyrics and seeing how they're put together. Listen to the sounds of the words, as well as what she's saying. Learn the style of her best rhymes.
- Memorize some of Nicki's best verses. Before you start trying to rap your own rhymes or songs in a Nicki Minaj style, it's good to memorize your favorite verses entirely so you can see how they're put together. Copy them out into a journal or onto your phone, and carry them around with you.
- You can check out RapGenius for the lyrics to most of Nicki's songs, or you can check out the lyric sheets in the physical copy of her albums.
4
Start rapping along to Nicki's songs. As you gradually learn more and more of the lyrics, lock yourself in your bedroom and start spitting alongside the pink queen herself. As you play the tracks, try to keep up and mimic the way Nicki uses her voices, staying on beat as closely as possible.^{[2]
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Research source} Try to keep up.
- Try rapping them a cappella as well, once you get the hang of rapping along with the track. Try to focus on staying as rhythmic as possible, and not losing track of your Nicki flow.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Rapping Like Nicki

1
Find your giggling high voice. One of the unique parts of Nicki Minaj's rap style is her squeaky, giggling, cutesy voice that she goes into to emphasize certain parts of some songs. Her whole persona goes back and forth between cutesy and aggressive, and this voice is an important part of that.
- Rap in your normal voice, then pinch your throat and pull your tongue back to rap in the back of your throat, moving your mouth up and down like a ventriloquist dummy. Nicki does this sometimes to get that kind of sound.
- She also does a kind of Sorority Girl vocal fry in some of her songs for comic effect. For good examples of this voice, check out her earliest mixtape songs like "Itty Bitty Piggy."
2
Find your low growly voice. Just like her mentor Lil Wayne will slip into a variety of voices, Nicki's got a bunch at her disposal, including a sudden and funny "Cookie Monster" growl.
- Sometimes, when performing live, Nicki will just start going into nonsense words, chanting gibberish that sounds pretty awesome on beat. Check out some live clips of her performing "Starships" on the Today Show for a good example of this voice style.
3
Be loud. Nicki's got a big voice, so don't try to rap like Nicki if you're going to go to the mic meekly. Work on your roar and rap with lots of confidence in your voice and in your rhymes. Dropping offbeat or flubbing a word is less important than being loud and being aggressive on the mic.
- When you're rapping, loudly alternate between your two voices, suddenly. One of the reasons Nicki does that growly funny Cookie Monster voice is to show just how much she doesn't care about your opinion, but she's going to throw it in your face anyway.
4
Stress the consonants. One vocal styling that Nicki Minaj includes in many of her raps in a hard, beat-driven emphasis on the consonants of the words in the songs, like she's trying to nail the words into the ground. It's a hard-stuttering beat that she puts on tracks like "I Don't Give A" that make her rhymes stand out. Check out these songs for good examples of her stresses:
- "Blazin'"
- "Make Me Proud" w/ Drake
- "Up All Night" w/ Drake
- "Beam Me Up Scotty"
5
Don't be afraid to go offbeat. Nicki Minaj will often wander offbeat entirely and just start talking, or growling, or talking trash in a funny voice. It's one of the most unique parts of her personality and one of the reasons people love her music. If you're an aspiring rapper making your own songs, don't be afraid to forget the beat entirely and jump off track to talk some trash. It's all about the heart.
- For good examples of this, check out live YouTube videos of Nicki performing her songs. This is something she does more frequently live than on record.
6
Be confident. You don't have to listen to many Nicki tracks before you learn about her biggest subject: The greatest rapper alive, Nicki Minaj. Nicki loves to rap about her greatness on the mic and in the sack, and it's her bragging and boasting that makes us laugh and makes us love her tunes.
- Don't be afraid to compare yourself to other rappers in your rhymes. One thing Nicki does constantly is to set up other wack rappers in her songs to knock down. It's a constant in most hip-hop, and Nicki does it as well as the best of them. Don't be afraid to talk some trash.
7
Use lots of similes and puns. Like Young Money compatriot Lil Wayne, Nicki raps using lots of similes, which are comparison statements using the words "like" or "as." Puns are examples of playing with words that have more than one meaning. Lots of rapper use both of these techniques, but she's a pro.
- A good example of a simile is a line like "I come through, it gets hotter than a soup kitchen / Leave clips in your head like a beautician."
- A good example of a pun is a line like "You couldn't get a fan if it was hanging from the ceiling."

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Improving Your Nicki-Style Raps

1
Rap constantly. Nicki Minaj didn't get where she is now overnight, and didn't get there based on her looks alone. She got there with some serious hustle, grabbing people's attention on the microphone. If you want to rap like her, you've got to study the craft, devote yourself to hip-hop, and rap all the time.
- Put your favorite Nicki tracks on your iPod or on your phone and walk around with them, rapping along silently. When you get back home, leave the track quiet and try to rap it by yourself. Keep practicing until you get it perfect.
- Try to find a place you can practice rhyming in quiet, so you can focus on improving. You might want to rush and show your friends as soon as possible, but take the time to make sure you're really good and talented first, so they'll be blown away.
2
Practicing rapping on rhythm. Rapping is about a lot more than rhyming words. Finding the flow that will work alongside different beats and structuring your rap with the beat is a critical part of being a good rapper. Even if you write great lyrics and do a great Nicki impression, being a Nicki-level rapper isn't possible without flow.
- One good way of learning about flow is checking out other rappers versions of a song on free mixtape, or on YouTube. Check out Nicki freestyling over labelmate Lil Wayne's "A Milli" to see how her flow differs from his.
3
Keep a rhyming journal. To keep your rhymes organized, start a rhyming journal where you can keep track of good rhyming words, good lines, and start building up your Nicki-style songs.
- If you don't want to carry around a bulky journal all the time, keep your notes organized on your phone or some other mobile device for your rhymes. Keep them clearly labeled so you don't have to hunt around for those nasty rhymes you wrote last weekend.
- Even if you think of yourself as a freestyle rapper, it's a good idea to keep track of your best rhymes and keep working on them. This doesn't make you a worse freestyle rapper, it makes you a smarter one.
4
Start writing out clusters of rhyming words. If you're an aspiring rapper, this is an essential way to get started and eventually building up your ability to freestyle. Many rappers, as they're learning, will keep rhyming lists, with good endings or punch lines to build toward as you rap.
- Get a rhyming dictionary, or use rhyming dictionary websites online to help you find rhymes to fill out your best work and give more options.
5
Try writing at least three new rhymes a day. It's important to keep moving forward and keep trying. If you want to improve and start rapping like Nicki, start yourself a regular plan of writing three new rhymes every single day, which means about six lines of rapping. Keep yourself on that track as long as possible, and you'll have a new verse every week. It doesn't need to take more than thirty minutes or an hour each day.
- At the end of the month, you can go back through and see how many of those verses are worth keeping. Start looking for beats and building your own songs from these rhymes and you'll be on the way.

Community Q&A

Question

How do find a rap topic?

Community Answer

Talk about your life, what inspired you to start rapping, and what you would like to achieve or have already achieved.
Question

What if I can't talk fast enough?

Community Answer

Try to do some Tongue Twisters for practice.
Question

How can I come up with the lyrics?

Community Answer

Find an inspiration and find a beat. Come up with words and phrases that rhyme.