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"  When you hear the 5&amp;#039;2&amp;#039;&amp;#039; neon-wig-wearing Nicki Minaj spitting out growls, cartoon voices, and tightly wound lyrics on verses for Mariah Carey, Usher, Kanye West, Ludacris, Drake, and Lil Wayne, it&amp;#039;s obvious why the critical masses have dubbed her Lil&amp;#039; Kim 2.0. (Not that Kim&amp;#039;s too pleased with the comparison\u2014this past summer, she accused Minaj of cribbing her style.) But the 25-year-old Queens native, who grew up listening to Salt-N-Pepa and Lauryn Hill, is more concerned about keeping up with the boys. &amp;quot;When I write, I don&amp;#039;t try to compete with any other female rapper,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;The only way you&amp;#039;re going to push your pen is to think, I&amp;#039;ve got to shut these dudes down.&amp;quot; And that&amp;#039;s coming from the only female rapper signed to Cash Money Records, which released Pink Friday last week, a debut \u00ADalbum filled with boombastic club anthems sung by her alter ego, &amp;quot;Roman Zolanski,&amp;quot; \u00ADcollaborations with Will.I.Am and Drake, and so-bizarre-they-work hooks (she samples Annie Lennox in the slow-jam single &amp;quot;Your Love,&amp;quot; check it out below).   ELLE: You have a few alter egos, so who am I talking to? Nicki the Ninja? Nicki the Boss?  Nicki Minaj: You&amp;#039;re definitely talking to the Boss right now. I don&amp;#039;t think I even go by Ninja and Boss anymore, I just go by Nicki Minaj and Barbie.   ELLE: Wait, but who is Roman Zolanski?  NM: Roman is a weird little alter ego who is very flamboyant and doesn&amp;#039;t give a damn. You know when I&amp;#039;m doing really weird voices, growling, being real crazy, and talking like Anna Nicole Smith? That&amp;#039;s Roman.   ELLE: Ah okay. I think I get it. NM: Roman rapped on &amp;quot;Bottoms Up&amp;quot; with Trey Songz. And then Barbie rapped on `Your Love&amp;#039;. I think I just confused you ten times more.   ELLE: What&amp;#039;s the craziest request for a verse you&amp;#039;ve ever gotten? NM: I&amp;#039;ve turned down like a billion of requests for sexually explicit lyrics. People just have to just start understanding that it&amp;#039;s not the only thing I have to talk about, it&amp;#039;s not the only thing I want to talk about, it&amp;#039;s not the only thing I&amp;#039;m going to talk about. I just have to take control of my brand because longevity is very important to me, and I wasn&amp;#039;t just going to please a couple of people then look back, and think &amp;quot;Wow, what did I just do to myself?&amp;quot; So I had turn a lot of people down, and there are a lot of people who were offended. I won&amp;#039;t name names, but they have to get over it.   ELLE: Speaking of sex, I heard that your fans ask you sign their boobs? NM: Oh yeah, big boobs, little boobs, dry boobs, sweaty boobs, they don&amp;#039;t care. It doesn&amp;#039;t seem weird, though. It feels so empowering, and the girls are so happy about it. I really don&amp;#039;t even remember the first boob I signed, but now I can&amp;#039;t go anywhere without signing at least a hundred.  To give you more insight into the neon-tressed superstar, here are 7 Nicki Minaj tracks you need to know\u2014give them a listen, and be sure to check out the entire Pink Friday album (to buy it, click here.)   For a slideshow of some of Nicki&amp;#039;s wildest fashion moments, click here &amp;amp;gt; To read our May 2011 Women in Music interview and see the photoshoot with Nicki Minaj, click here &amp;amp;gt;  &amp;quot;Your Love,&amp;quot; from Pink Friday, (samples Annie Lennox&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;No More I Love Yous&amp;quot;).      &amp;quot;Massive Attack,&amp;quot; released as a single, featuring Sean Garrett.      &amp;quot;Blazin,&amp;quot; from Pink Friday, featuring Kanye West (and samples Simple Minds&amp;#039; 80s classic &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t You Forget About Me&amp;quot;).      &amp;quot;Monster,&amp;quot; from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, by Kanye West, featuring Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Jay-Z, and Bon Iver.      &amp;quot;Moment 4 Life,&amp;quot; from Pink Friday, featuring Drake.      &amp;quot;Check It Out,&amp;quot; from Pink Friday, featuring Will.I.Am.       &amp;quot;Roman&amp;#039;s Revenge,&amp;quot; from Pink Friday, featuring Eminem (and a possible insult to Lil Kim).      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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