Fans finally got that long-teased Nicki Minaj and Drake collaboration, courtesy of her new album, Pink Friday 2.
Minaj celebrated her 41st birthday on Friday, December 8, by dropping her fifth studio album. The follow-up to 2018’s Queen featured appearances from J. Cole, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne and Future, but one song that caught Barbz’s attention was “Needle.” The track marks Minaj’s first collab with Drake, 37, since 2021’s “Seeing Green” — and the chemistry between them is still red hot.
“Friends were pessimistic ’bout our love, heard they tight now / We both know they’re miserable at home, f–k ’em all,” raps Drake in his verse. Minaj comes in, and she’s “Shadin’ like silhouettes, spinnin’ like pirouettes / It gave nothin’, bitch, thank you for zero, next / Damn, Drizzy, another bitter ex, shout out my intellects.”
Drake and Minaj sing the final chorus, in which they acknowledge how rare it was for them to find each other in life: “Pull up the Maybach and bend your leg back / Let’s engage that, don’t delay that / You’re like a needle, life’s a haystack / Friends they can leave us, you could stay back.”
Drake and Minaj first worked together on “BedRock,” a single released by hip-hop group/label Young Money Entertainment in 2009. It’s considered Minaj’s debut, leading to multiple collaborations with the “God’s Plan” rapper.
The two teamed up on “Moment 4 Life” from her Pink Friday album and “Up All Night” from Drake’s Thank Me Later. From there, she and Drake would work together on “Make Me Proud” from Drake’s Take Care, as well as “Only” and “Truffle Butter” from her album, The Pinkprint, and the 2017 single “No Frauds.” Drake also had a notable cameo in Minaj’s “Anaconda” video, in which she gave him a spicy lap dance.
The longtime friends frequently sparked romance rumors with how flirty and physical they would get on stage, but Minaj clarified her relationship with Drake on “Only,” rapping that she “never f—ked [Lil] Wayne / I never f—ked Drake.” Though Drake said that he would be “first in line” to have sex with her when she was single, Minaj married Kenneth Petty in 2019. The couple welcomed their son in October 2020. That same month, Minaj said she was excited for her baby to have “playdates” with Drake’s baby boy, Adonis, now 6.
Nicki Minaj and Drake attend the 2017 Billboard Music Awards on May 21, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Kevin Mazur/BBMA2017/Getty Images for dcp
Minaj spoke with Zane Lowe about her latest Drake collaboration on Apple Music 1’s New Music Daily show on September 1. “I’ll just say I really love the song. I know my fans are going to love the song,” she said. “I know the world’s going to love the song. And that’s all I will say about that.”
At the time, Drake hadn’t completed his part of the collaboration. Minaj told her fans — the Barbz — to “let Drizzy Drake know that Pink Friday 2 is coming out …. and we are waiting on his contribution.”
Drake previously told the crowd at his July 8 concert at Detroit’s Little Caesars Arena that the team-up was on the way. “I’m gonna give away one thing for you tonight because I got a lot of love for Detroit,” said Drake, per Billboard. “So I’m gonna have to tell you that me and Nicki Minaj did our first song together in, like, a really long time. I got a lot of love for her.”
Initially, fans thought Minaj would appear on his album, For All the Dogs, which dropped on October 6, but they were disappointed when she wasn’t among the featured performers. It would be two more months before “Needle” saw the light of day ( Minaj pushed her album back from its original November 17 release date to her birthday, December 8.)
