What happened between Nicki Minaj and Latto? Feud between the rappers, explained

With four headlining tours, five studio albums, and countless awards under her belt, Nicki Minaj is one of the wealthiest and most successful rappers in the music industry today. Minaj's career has also been dotted with feuds with other rappers and artists like Lil' Kim, Remy Ma, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Mariah Carey, among others.

Another rapper that Nicki Minaj has had beef with in the past is Latto. While Latto was a self-proclaimed "Barb" and looked up to Nicki in the initial years of her career, the two artists were engaged in an X war in 2022. It all started with the Pink Friday rapper's song being pulled from the rap categories in the 65th Grammy nominations.

Latto - originally named Alyssa Michelle Stephens - started her rapping career in 2016 as a contestant in the reality series, The Rap Game. She had spoken publicly about being inspired by Minaj before the beef between the two started.

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Nicki Minaj's tweet about the Grammy category change initiated a feud between the two

In 2022, Nicki Minaj's lead single from Pink Friday 2 - Super Freaky Girl - was initially nominated in the Best Rap Song category, alongside Latto's 2021 single, Big Energy.

However, Grammy later decided to pull Super Freaky Girl from all the rap categories and was considered for Best Pop Solo Performance. The track was one of Nicki Minaj's mainstream hits, peaking at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The Swalla rapper found this decision unfair and wrote about it on X on October 14, mentioning that if her track was moved out of the rap category, Latto's Big Energy should be moved, too. Nicki also retweeted a post that pointed out that Latto had herself called Big Energy a pop song in the past, captioning it "Yikes".

This led Latto to DM Minaj, asking her not to use her song to "prove a point". Minaj took a screenshot of this and shared it in a since-deleted tweet, writing:

"This Karen has probably mentioned my name in over 100 interviews,” she said. “Says she waited in line for Pink Friday w|her Barbie chain on, bangs, pink hair…but today, scratch off decides to be silent; rather than speak up for the black woman she called her biggest inspiration."

Following Nicki Minaj's string of tweets, Latto hit back with a tweet about not being able to celebrate her nominations, hinting at the Side to Side rapper's tweet indirectly.

In her next tweet, the Soufside rapper clarified how she had DMed Minaj because she didn't want to "do the internet s***" with someone she looked up to. Then, she tagged Nicki Minaj in a following tweet, calling her out for "literally older than my mom tryna be a bully".

Latto's jabs at Nicki led the Starships rapper to reciprocate with a since-deleted five-post story.

She shared more screenshots of their DMs, claiming that she had shot Latto down for features in her songs multiple times, then citing it as a reason why the Muwop rapper was trying to get back at her.

In response to it, Latto hit back at Minaj by seeimingly age-shaming her and accusing her of being married and elated to r**ists and calling her "idol turned rival".

Following the heated exchange between the rappers, many of Minaj's tweets were deleted.

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Minaj called Grammy's decision an agenda-driven move

The 2024 Met Gala Celebrating "Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion" - Street Sightings (Image via Getty)

According to Billboard, Nicki Minaj considered Super Freaky Girl's category change as Grammy's agenda to focus on rising rap stars rather than veterans.

The Hey Mama rapper spoke at length about it in an Instagram Live in October 2022, calling the decision Grammy's way of "moving the goalpost" in an attempt to:

"uplift the people who they want to shine, the people who these corporate giants can make the money off of the people, control things behind the scenes, they have to elevate someone that they profit off."

Minaj also warned her audience that the agenda-driven decision would soon kill the diversity in hip-hop, adding:

"If you can’t tell by now that there is a concerted effort to give newer artists things that they really don’t deserve, over people who have been deserving for many years, then you’re not paying attention. And soon female rap will really not have any black women. If you pay attention, you’ll see, you’ll understand."

Nicki Minaj's beef with Grammy runs older than 2022. The rapper has been abstaining from attending the award show since 2015, regardless of whether or not any of her work is nominated in any category. So far, Minaj hasn't won a Grammy despite having 12 nominations.