10. Nicki MinajBeam Me up Scotty
The story of how I found out about Nicki Minaj is funny. One of my friends who I was roommates with in college was doing African American studies, and she was really into academia. She was writing a paper on Nicki Minaj, and I was like: ‘who?’ She wasn’t famous at all, this was in the MySpace days, where it was really hard to find out shit about people. She told me you have to listen to ‘Itty Bitty Piggy’. I did and I was never the same. I was like: ‘What’s this beat? Who’s this fake Lil Wayne? What’s going on?’ It was a crazy cultural moment to me, and the fact that my friend was writing a thesis about her made it even crazier. I thought I was missing something. It was one of those moments where you’re listening to someone you know is about to blow up, but you don’t really know what you’re listening to. Two years later her debut came out, and the rest is history.
