The Cultural Significance of Nicki Minaj’s Conservatism

Last week, the so-called “Queen of Rap” Nicki Minaj offered up an unlikely endorsement. Posting on X, she described the performance in the House of Commons of Kemi Badenoch, the leader of Britain’s Conservative party, as “truly one of a kind” and, sharing a picture of Ms. Badenoch’s typically feisty appearance on the BBC’s Question Time show, tweeted “They will portray her in film & TV one day… just like they did with Margaret Thatcher.”Kemi Badenoch, seldom one to see an opportunity without jumping on it, swiftly responded that “It was very flattering to hear Nicki Minaj compare me to Margaret Thatcher, who is a heroine of mine, and in fact a heroine to all Conservatives. I do like her song Starships, I’ve been dancing to it for a long time, as do my children.” Then, of course, aside from the post being retweeted over 3.5 million times, there was political capital to be made, as Badenoch declared that, “it’s very flattering that even in the US they can see who is holding Labour to account – it’s the Conservatives, it is me, and that’s quite a nice thing to see.”Ms. Badenoch’s party is attracting comparatively little attention at home — let alone in America — thanks to the internecine strife that dominates the governing Labour party. Ms. Minaj, on the other hand, has always been someone with her pulse on the zeitgeist, ever since “Pink Friday”took the world by storm in 2010. Yet despite the 54 million albums that she has sold now, along with her 26 million followers on X, she is increasingly someone who is becoming better known for her political views than her music.In 2023, she informed Vogue that “I’m one of those people who doesn’t go with a crowd. I like to make my own assessment of everything without help from everyone.” This might explain her endorsement of Ms. Badenoch, but also goes a long way towards her current status as a MAGA icon. While her support of President Trump may not have been wholly unexpected — as far back as 2012, she rapped that “I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Romney/ You lazy bitches is fucking up the economy” — but her pivot towards full-scale embrace of right-wing politics on both sides of the Atlantic stems, in part, from the sheer ineptitude of the Kamala Harris campaign in 2024 and President Obama’s by-the-numbers endorsement of his would-be presidential successor. Ms. Minaj remarked to TIME, “I just saw so many videos of Black men saying that they didn’t like the way they felt about that speech that Obama gave. They felt like they weren’t being listened to.” While she initially held her tongue, for fear of alienating both fans and record labels alike, it soon dawned on Ms. Minaj that contemporary America was a place where she was more than welcome to make her opinions clear. She had been a Trump supporter and admirer for a considerable time, saying “I felt that way already about him, just that I didn’t dare act like that publicly. It’s been ingrained in everyone’s brain in the music business that we are supposed to be a Democratic family. I just knew they would not like me supporting Trump.”It has been suggested that Minaj’s very public MAGA endorsements — which have included being interviewed at Turning Point USA by Erika Kirk last year — are intended, in part, as a riposte to her nemesis Jay-Z, himself a committed Democrat. Yet it is amusing to observe that another one-time rival of hers, in the form of Azaelia Banks, is also a Kemi Badenoch stan. Ms. Banks called the Conservative leader a “star” and “fucking iconic”, and wrote on X that “I hope you all vote Conservative and listen to Kemi Badenoch.” Surely, it is not long before Nicki Minaj, Azelia Banks, or another leading musician, claims that Badenoch is nothing less than their British equivalent.Nicki Minaj at the 2025 Met Gala. Savion Washington/Getty ImagesHow welcome this endorsement would be is unclear, but the links between hip-hop and politics have been far more pervasive over the past couple of decades than many would have imagined. The industry has come a long way from the time that Dan Quayle called the existence of Tupac Shakur’s 2pacalypse Now “an irresponsible corporate act” in 1992, requesting that Interscope Records withdraw it altogether, huffing “It has no place in our society.” Mr. Obama, in particular, referenced Jay-Z lyrics in his speeches, returning the favor to his influential backer.Yet just because hip-hop has become not just accepted but mainstream does not mean that its practitioners escape censure. Another one-time fan of Mr. Obama, Kanye “Ye” West, has undeniably been on a complex political journey over the past decade — including his own endorsement of Trump — but the point at which he went beyond the pale for many was when he vigorously declared his antisemitism on social media before releasing a song called “Heil Hitler.” He has claimed that his outbursts have been triggered by either his autism or bipolar disorder, but it seems more likely that they were brought about by a desire to provoke and to shock. This might make West a controversialist rather than a bigot, but it does not excuse the often appalling things that he has said, nor the way in which he has defiled virtually everyone who he has come into contact with by his actions.The question is whether other, currently apolitical, musicians and pop stars will be emboldened by Minaj to come out in support of Trump or the MAGA movement. There are those who have always been right-coded, rightly or wrongly, such as Brandon Flowers of The Killers and Lana Del Rey, but who have largely kept quiet about their political leanings for fear of criticism from both their fanbase and the wider world and who might now feel emboldened to become more open, seeing that Ms. Minaj’s views have made little, if any, difference to her successful career. It seems like another world in which Taylor Swift was pilloried for being insufficiently pro-Democrat and was forced into making various anti-Trump statements. There is now a new attitude and it would not be at all surprising to find some unlikely figures — not just Kid Rock — making pro-MAGA statements in public in the future.Perhaps Kemi Badenoch is right, and the “girl power” that the queen of hip-hop is offering her in solidarity will be of genuine use to the Conservative party at the next election. But if she casts an eye over the Atlantic, and observes how hip-hop feuds have now encompassed the field of politics as well as music, she might be wary about how enthusiastically she responds to these endorsements if and when they are offered again in the future.

The Cultural Significance of Nicki Minaj’s Conservatism

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