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Nicki Minaj opened up about the passing of her father in 2021 and how the untimely event influenced one track in particular on Pink Friday 2.
“The first verse was me talking to [him] — “You never got to meet Papa,” she told Ebro Darden. “Okay, it’s me speaking to my father.”
The lyrics are a part of the #1 track on her album, “Are You Gone Already.”
Nicki explained how she got a call from her father, Robert Maraj, who was 64 at the time of his hit-and-run death, and was excited to travel to LA soon to reunite with his daughter and meet his newborn grandson, Papa Bear. The rapper said that she got a call one night from her mother, who broke the news Maraj had been in a car accident and “didn’t know what was going to happen.”
Nicki’s father died at the hospital as a result of his injuries and was never able to meet his grandson.
“So I call my son Papa Bear. So I’m telling my father, ‘You never got to meet Papa,'” Nicki said of the lyrics. “And then, I begin to explain the time from my mother first calling me, telling me he was in an accident, to her calling me, telling me that he didn’t make it. So I’m like, ‘The waiting, the pacing, the raving.’ And at the end, ‘I just believed you’d awaken, a memory in the making. Call me. Won’t you call me? Are you gone already?'”
The song, which appears on Nicki’s chart-topping, record-breaking Pink Friday sequel, samples “When the Party’s Over” by Billie Eilish.
On the track, listeners can hear baby sounds made most likely by Nicki’s now 3-year-old son, Papa Bear.
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