The day is almost here. Nicki Minaj's long-awaited and highly-anticipated album Queen is set to arrive on August 10th ... but fans may now have to wait a little longer than that. But, not that much longer. Just a week. This all depending on whether or not the rapper wants to wait for a Tracy Chapman sample to clear.
On Twitter, Nicki admitted to her fans that there's a song on Queen that "features one of the greatest rappers of all time," but that it sampled Tracy Chapman, and that she was deciding whether to push her album release back by a week for the sample to clear or release the LP without the song.
In a pair of now-deleted tweets, she wrote, "So there’s a record on #Queen that features 1of the greatest rappers of all time. Had no clue it sampled the legend #TracyChapman – do I keep my date & lose the record? Or do I lose the record & keep my date? do we push #Queen back 1week? Ugh! I’m torn, y’all help."
She followed up by letting fans now that she spilling some "good tea" in said song, writing, "Y’all gon get mad tea on that song too. I’m high key lookin out for y’all chile. It’s sum GOODT TEA TOO I’d be willing to sacrifice one more week for this tea! But I haven’t decided. Ugh. Love you #Queen"
Meanwhile on Instagram, Nicki posted an screenshot of a text conversation, which read:
"Hey sis, yeah so look Nicki's life is in your hands she needs you to hit her up so she can clear a record she sampled you in so that it can officially go on the album cause if she DON'T and she pushes this album back you be held accountable for slapping the good dawg sh** out of her and I would hate to kill my b*tch before this amazing world tour she has planned. So can you PLEASE HIT THE QUEEN UP FOR QUEEN. Thanks luv."
A followup text said, "Hey girl it's me again so perhaps Nicki releases the song ........ how much would you exactly sue her for? would a million be good? She can even do 2 million just let us know and we'll make sure she gives you the money after August 10th luv."
No response yet.
Nicki asked her fans for their advice by posting a Twitter poll. She asked, "since I may have asked it wrong. vote. You guys can only imagine how much this means to me. It's such a perfect body of work. love you. Long time." She then gave her fans the option to vote for "keep date/lose record" or "keep record/push date 1 wk."
At the time of this post, keeping the record and pushing the Queen release back by one week was winning — but not by much. It's a tight vote.
Fans have been waiting for Queen from Nicki for a while. Minaj released her last album, The Pinkprint, back in 2014. She revealed her album name and release date on the red carpet at this year's Met Gala, with the original release date set for June 15th. She then pushed it back to August 10th.
Will Queen be pushed back another week? Will we hear this new song spilling some amazing tea? Only time will tell!
Photo: Getty Images