Nicki Minaj has expressed her disappointment in the Grammys switching her single “Super Freaky Girl” from the rap categories to pop.
The “Starships” hitmaker and her team submitted the track to the Recording Academy to be considered for nominations in the rap categories.
However, The Hollywood Reporter revealed earlier this week that the organization’s rap committee overturned the submission and moved it to pop.
Nicki addressed the decision on Instagram Live and suggested it was unfair her song had been classified as pop when Latto’s “Big Energy” had not.
I have no prob being moved out the RAP category as long as we r ALL being treated FAIRLY. If SFG has 2B moved out RAP then so does Big Energy! ANY1 who says diff is simply a Nicki hater or a troll. I’d actually LUV 2 c a more street record win- male OR female! IJS rightIsRight 🫡
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) October 13, 2022
“So, Big Energy is rap, but ‘Super Freaky Girl’ is pop. If you say both of them are pop, I’d say OK, fine, because I’m all about being fair,” she stated. “If ‘Super Freaky Girl’ is pop, then so is ‘Big Energy.’ If you move ‘Super Freaky Girl’ out of rap and put it in pop, do the same thing with ‘Big Energy.’ Right? Same producers on both songs, by the way, if you want to talk about it. So let’s keep s### fair.”
Nicki, who has been nominated for a Grammy 10 times, claimed that the Recording Academy “move the goalposts” with her because they don’t want her to win and alleged there is “a concerted effort” to give new artists recognition they don’t deserve “over people who have been deserving for many years.”
“But why is the goalpost only ever moved when it’s Nicki?” she asked. “Well, I’ll tell you why. They don’t want the people who they have in the industry to go up against me. But why? If you’re great, if a song is great, you should be able to be put together in the same category.”
She then alleged that putting her in pop categories against the likes of Harry Styles and Adele gives her less chance to win.
“Now what do you think is gonna happen when they start voting on these pop categories? And it’s a bunch of people, white or wherever they’re from, or older or whatever, and they have to decide between Nicki Minaj and Harry Styles, or Nicki Minaj and Adele?” she said. “That’s purposely designed so that Nicki is not in the (rap) category that we don’t want any competition in. Put her in there (in pop) so she has more competition and less of a chance to win.”
Nicki’s video subsequently sparked a war of words on Twitter between her and Latto.