Why did Nicki Minaj refuse to work with City Girls? Hip hop duos disses against rapper explored

On February 2, 2022, Nicki Minaj was invited to the The Morning Hustle radio show.

During the show, Minaj revealed that she was initially eager to jump on one of the City Girls' songs, but withheld after she heard about some harsh comments from them circulating online, adding:

"That’s just a human way to feel, if you hear somebody was saying things about you—not just one thing—but repeated things, repeated tweets for years, not just one thing."

When the host added that such a thing was hard to "let go," the Anaconda rapper said that she had already let it go, "but why would I work with somebody who doesn’t like me?"

Here's a look at what led to Nicki Minaj being upset with the hip-hop duo.

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Yung Miami said she was "Team Bardi" when asked about working with Nicki Minaj in 2018

On November 13, 2018, Yung Miami of the City Girls was invited to The Breakfast Club as a guest. In the radio show, Tha God asked her if the duo would ever work with the artist, to which Yung Miami responded with:

"I just want to stay away from that question, like, I don’t want to get into that but I am team Cardi, City Girls is team Cardi, Cardi supports the City Girls. We don’t have to ask. We’ll just wake up and see she tweeted about City Girls like, she really loves City Girls... I'm Team Bardi... period."

JT, her partner, was in prison at the time over a credit card fraud. However, shortly after Yung Miami’s comment, an unexpected rap feud erupted between the duo and Nicki Minaj when an old video of JT resurfaced on social media.

In the video, which was from before the duo became famous, JT was recorded freestyling inside a car, saying about the Super Freaky Girl rapper:

"I don't f*** with Nicki, I don't care, I'm beefing with Nicki"

As the video went viral, Yung Miami came to her fellow rapper's defense in an Instagram Live session, saying:

"We was playin' around freestylin' on a beat. We never thought nobody was finna hear that s**t. We ain't ever think we was gonna get signed. We never thought none of that. Y'all bitches aggravating as f***. You want to end the City Girls so bad but it ain't gonna happen."

Two years after the video's virality died down on social media, the City Girls joined GQ for an undercover social media session. When a fan asked about when a Nicki Minaj collaboration was coming, the duo responded:

"We’re hoping for it in the future, seriously. A lot of people try to make fun of it, like, ‘Ahhh, you’re never going to get your feature,’ but you never know what can happen."

Their response appeared to indicate that the rap duo was ready to move on from their past disses at the Only rapper and looked forward to working together.

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Minaj decided to move on from the feud soon after her 2022 interview

Elsewhere in her interview with The Morning Hustle radio show, Nicki Minaj added how the past disses from City Girls led her to keep a distance from the hip-hop duo, saying:

"So, as an artist and a human being first, if I, as just a regular human, was about to go to dinner with you tonight and then I get something that says, 'Yo, she don’t really f*** with you like that, she was saying this and she don’t really like you, and she said she hopes you actually never pop or never flourish’...I’m not gonna go out to dinner with you anymore because now I know that I like you, but you don't really like me."

Soon after the Hey Mama rapper pointed out the reason behind not working with City Girls, the duo decided to make amends and jumped on a call with Nicki. The very next day, Minaj tweeted about having a great conversation with the duo, adding "Let's move on and make new memories."

Both rappers later retweeted Nicki Minaj's tweet, calling her "queen."

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Two years after the reconciliation between Nicki Minaj and City Girls, the duo split up in June 2024, with the rappers now focusing on their solo music careers.