Being signed to Young Money Entertainment gave Nicki an excellent edge, to be a part of a team with some of the best in the business. Not only did Lil Wayne take her under his wing, but Gucci Mane had his own influence on her style and upbringing in the industry.
"Gucci is real fast," she said of the difference between him and Wayne. "He'll force me, like, 'No, no, no. You're taking too long.' Wayne, we'll have more of a laid back situation. He'll give me time to tweak a little more. But they both teach me a lot — they both a have a crazy work ethic. Wayne is my sensei. That's what I call him. He calls me his ninja — 'Ninja Nicki.'"
Aside from working with Lil Wayne and Gucci, Nicki's talents have led her to collaborate with various other artists. In December of 2009, Lil Wayne released a studio album, “We Are Young Money,” featuring an ensemble cast of the various artists signed to his label. Nicki Minaj appeared on five different tracks, working alongside Lil Wayne, Gudda Guda, Drake, Tyga, Jae Millz, T-Streets, Lil Twist, Lil Chuckee, Mack Maine, and Shanell. In addition, Nicki has teamed up on album tracks with Ludacris, Weezy, and Usher.
Critics were impressed with Nicki's work with famous R&B singer Mariah Carey, where she was featured on the single and in the video for “Up Out My Face.” The two hit it off quite well and still remain close. Nicki said, “I felt like Mariah and I really hit it off on a personal level. Not that we speak every single day, but, whenever we speak, we're always laughing within two seconds. She reminds me of myself with her sense of humor, her ability to use sarcasm all the time. But working with her was like a dream come true. I've loved Mariah for as long as I can remember. To have that and for her to be my first video and first big feature, that in itself was just incredible.”
When it came time for her debut album, “Pink Friday,” to come out, she had opportunities to bring in her own extras.
“I was really excited to collaborate with Rihanna. She was someone I was looking forward to working with for a long time. The song that we collaborated on is called "Fly," and it's a female empowerment record. I'm very, very proud of that one.”
"There are a lot of artists in the world,” said Black-Eyed Peas star, Will.i.am, after dropping the “Check it Out” video with Minaj. “The Internet is flooded with every single thing in the world. But she is different. She's unique, and she's busted through all the noise,". He stated that it was her eccentricities that made her stand out as a star, and with good reason. Jumping from British to Jamaican accents and tossing growls like a caged animal flow surprisingly well with her fifty-rhyme-per-minute style of rapping, before breaking out into an amazingly alluring singing voice.
Later, she reported her dream collaboration. “Probably just Beyoncé right now. I've worked with just about all my dream collabs. Like, I’ve worked with Jay-Z and I’ve worked with Kanye and I worked with Rihanna and I’ve worked with Eminem. Those were at the top of my list. Now that I’ve done that, probably the only one on my list that I haven’t worked with that I’m really, really excited about is Beyoncé.”
Minaj has gone on to perform in several tours, one of which was alongside Britney Spears on the North American side of her “Femme Fatale” tour in the summer of 2011. Both she and Kesha were featured in Spears's remix of “Till the World Ends” and Minaj joined her mid-performance during the encore.
More recently, she appeared with Madonna and M.I.A. for the Super Bowl XLVI, in which the trio performed “Give Me All Your Lovin’,” a new track from Madonna's upcoming twelfth album. M.I.A. was reported as having been a bit obscene by flipping off the cameras, an activity that Minaj refused to take part in due to her respect for Madonna, who she cites as being one of her influences.