Nicki Minaj Appears To Diss Kanye West During Essence Festival Performance

Nicki Minaj seemed to call Kanye West a "clown" during a performance of "Monster" at Essence Festival on Friday.

BYCole Blake
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Nicki Minaj cut short her performance of “Monster," at Essence Festival on Friday night, remarking that she doesn't "fuck with clowns." The Kanye West track famously features what many fans believe to be Minaj's best guest verse.

After performing several of her biggest tracks including, “Do We Have A Problem,” “We Go Up,” “Did It On ’em,” and “Beez in the Trap," her DJ began to play "Monster," before Minaj shut it down.

“A monster though!” Minaj began. “A monster though! But we don’t fuck with clowns.”

Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images

From there, she introduced Cash Money Records co-founder Birdman and Lil Wayne as her special guests for the set. They performed “#1 Stunna," “Seeing Green,” “High School,” “Truffle Butter” and “A Milli.”

If Minaj's comments were intended as a diss, it's unclear what prompted things to sour between the two artists. Some fans online began to theorize that West's recent collaboration with Cardi B on “Hot Shit" could be the cause.

West has yet to respond to Minaj's performance.

"Monster" was released in 2010 and was included on the tracklist for West's fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. In addition to Minaj, the track features Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and Bon Iver.

Essence Festival is scheduled to resume on Sunday with performances by Summer Walker, The Roots and Friends, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, and more.

Check out Minaj's apparent diss to Kanye West below.


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About The Author
Cole Blake is currently an Editor at HotNewHipHop based out of Brooklyn, New York. He began working at the site as an intern back in 2018 while studying journalism at St. John’s University. In the time since, he’s graduated with a bachelor's degree and written extensively about a wide range of topics including pop culture, film & television, politics, video games, sports, and much more. He’s also covered music festivals such as Gov. Ball and Rolling Loud. You can find him publishing work for HNHH from Monday to Wednesday or on weekends. On the sports front, Cole’s a passionate NBA and NFL fan with his favorite teams being the Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Lakers. He also roots for the Yankees whenever he finds himself at Yankee Stadium or the Red Storm when in the company of other SJU alumni. His favorite hip-hop artists are billy woods, Earl Sweatshirt, Cam’ron, MIKE, and Mach-Hommy.