Nicki Minaj Says She Can't See Herself Leaving Music

As 2019 comes to a close, the Queen reflects on the past 12 months, which included her marriage to Kenneth Petty and the launch of her Fendi collection.

But Minaj, who was honoured as Billboard’s inaugural Game-Changer, isn’t done yet. Despite announcing her retirement in September, the 37-year-old rapper is not exactly ready to hang up the mic.

“I love music and interacting with fans, so I can’t really see taking myself completely away,” she tells the magazine. “But I want to be open to other possibilities in my life. I do believe it is important to become a woman outside of the magnifying glass. I have to make sure that I’m well-rounded as a human being.”

Nicki is planning to expand her empire, which includes her MYX Fusions liquor brand. “I plan on venturing out a million times more than I am now,” she says. “That was always my goal: to become a big businesswoman. I don’t want to be in such a lucrative industry and not capitalize on it — everyone else does it.”

She also reflected on the success of Queen Radio, which broke the record for the most-listened-to show of the year on Apple Music.

“It’s another thing I didn’t expect to be so big. I went in blindly: ‘I’m just going to get on the mic and talk to my fans. It can’t be that hard.’ But it takes a lot of energy,” she says. “You have to be willing to be very honest and have a backbone. Queen Radio is beginning to set trends as well. There’s definitely going to be a lot more artists running into that [lane] really soon. If I can get it to a place where everyone looks forward to it every time, then I feel like I’m doing the right thing.”

Additionally, the rap icon shared what advice she would give to a young, hungry MC from Jamaica, Queens. “I would tell her to calm down!” she laughs. “But then again, if I knew that I was going to raise the bar, maybe I wouldn’t have gone that hard. I wouldn’t change anything, to be honest. My drive and hunger is what made me become the workaholic that I am. Everything was just spontaneous — I didn’t know what to expect, it was more fun that way.”