Nicki Minaj Billboard Cover: Nicki Minaj Covers Billboard Magazine

As the push toward Pink Friday reaches a crescendo, Nicki Minaj lands the cover of Billboard magazine, an institution that had previously hosted an extensive video interview with the Queens-bred lady of the hip hop hour. Adding to her Perez Hilton interview and countless appearances and radio call-ins, Nicki Minaj breaks down a few old and new things to Billboard for the cover story in this month’s issue.

Among some of the more interesting quotes, as compiled by Idolator, “When I started rapping, people were trying to make me like the typical New York rapper, but I’m not that. No disrespect to New York rappers, but I don’t want people to hear me and know exactly where I’m from.”

Hmmmm. We’re usually 1,000% supportive of Ms. Minaj, but we would like to know more about the thinking behind that one. Maybe some kind of calculated move, since New York wasn’t exactly looked at favorably by the rest of the hip hop listening country? Maybe it was best to attempt to remain heritage-ambiguous? Not thrilled about that tidbit…

Anyway, nothing terribly groundbreaking in the story, expect perhaps how the hype of her release is really building, now a planned week-long event with an AOL webisode series “24 Hours With Nicki Minaj” in the mix. That’s pretty big.

Well, even though you may have tried to forsake your homeland Nicki, we still love what you’re doing.

And as we told you the other day, you can pre-order Pink Friday and get concert tickets to see Nicki Minaj at Highline Ballroom in NYC on Nov. 25.