Grammy Voting: Nicki Minaj Receives Zero Nominations for 2025 Awards

Picture this: You wake up in the morning, shower, brush your teeth, and get ready to start your day at a job where you consistently give 100%—far exceeding expectations and breaking records. Then, when employee of the year rolls around, you stand there, confident your name will be called… but it isn’t. No raise, no praise, no recognition.

How would you feel? We can’t say for sure that Nicki Minaj is feeling dejected, but if she were, would she be wrong? For the past seventeen years, Nicki Minaj has delivered lyrics, costumes, albums, tours, characters, and more, only to never receive a single Grammy despite her many efforts. This year, Minaj grossed over $108 million in tour sales. The ‘Pink Friday 2 World Tour’ is now the fourth-highest-grossing tour of all time for a rapper, and she is the only female rapper to achieve this—yet, still no Grammy awards.

Nicki Minaj’s official submissions for the 2025 Grammy Awards included:

‘Pink Friday 2’ for

• Album of the Year
• Best Rap Album
• Best Engineered Album

But instead, the nominees are:

‘FTCU’ for

• Record of the Year
• Best Rap Performance
• Best Rap Song

But instead, the nominees are:

She also submitted for Song of the Year, Best Rap Performance, and Best Melodic Rap Performance, but to be fair, we believe the nominees for those categories are correct. What we wish to focus on is the ‘Best Rap Album’ category, where she was clearly deserving of a nomination, yet it went to albums like Alligator Bites Never Heal and Might Delete Later (we'll let you guess who the artists are for those albums).

Let’s face it—while there’s a strong chance Eminem may secure the win, it’s almost insulting that Doechii made it into the category despite the PF2 era being a global phenomenon. Not only did Minaj give her fans and the world new music, but she also launched business ventures (tastefully integrated into her Gag City brand) with both her shoe line and press-on nails, which her fans had highly requested.

The PF2 album featured vulnerable and raw songs like “Let Me Calm Down,” “My Life,” “Are You Gone Already,” and “Blessings.” We ask artists to dive into their pain and share it with the world, only to turn around and either laugh at them for doing so or, worse yet, completely ignore their efforts. Nicki Minaj is one of the few rappers who still delivers powerful storytelling through her music; she not only interacts with her fans regularly, but her journey is also documented through her work.

Pink Friday captures Minaj as a breakout star, showing appreciation for her fans, her team, and God for the blessings she’s received. Songs like “I’m the Best” and “Moment 4 Life” remain cemented in our minds due to their powerful messages of resilience and gratitude.

Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is where we see Minaj leaning into her confidence while still keeping her playful nature at the forefront. She’s feminine and, at the same time, shows off her lyricism with songs such as “Beez in the Trap” and “Champion.” Minaj also did something very daring with this album—she went pop, and it was a success! Songs like “Starships,” “Stupid Hoe,” and one of my favorite hidden gems, “Marilyn Monroe,” really highlighted Minaj as a top contender in the genre.

The Pinkprint is Minaj’s love letter to the world, and no doubt an album that deserved a Grammy nomination and even a win at the time. We want this, we want storytelling, we want the double entendres, we want the intellect, we want the unguarded versions of our favorite artists, and here is where she laid it all out on a silver platter for us to consume. She even stripped herself of the gimmicks and the costumes during this era, but was still overlooked by her peers.

We were then introduced to Cardi B shortly after, and for whatever reason, the industry refused to acknowledge Minaj for her contribution to female rap up until this point. So much so that she felt compelled to remind everyone that she is still the rapper from Queens who can spit fire bars and still dress up and be pretty. The Queen era was my personal favorite because the music she shared with her fans during this time was a reminder that she’s not to be taken lightly and should not be pushed to the side just because she chose to be bubbly and sensitive in her past music.

This era gave us “Hard White,” “Sir,” “LLC,” “Majesty,” “Ganja Burns,” “Barbie Dreams,” and “Chun Li”! I mean, what more could we ask for? While we are not saying that other rappers aren’t talented, what is important to note is that Minaj is constantly setting the bar higher and higher with each of her projects, and her peers are not surpassing her lyrically, yet they are acknowledged for being lackluster as a way to show the public that they are “better than her.” Pink Friday 2 was a great album, and again, some amazing songs came out of this era. “Bussin” was certainly one that I loved, as well as “Let Me Calm Down,” “Red Ruby Da Sleeze,” “Fallin 4 U,” and “Everybody.” These are just some of the songs I believe deserve to be recognized by the Academy.

DEAR NICKI MINAJ,
Please don’t ever stop delivering quality music. You are the standard, the blueprint, and the moment. Unfortunately, there are forces at play larger than all of us here on earth because we know God is the biggest force, and there is no one like Him. But while we are here on this earth, we must play by “their” rules—even if, by their own merit, the rules are garbage. You are in fact the A and B side. Keep shining, keep smiling, and know that there is no award good enough for you!

by Diamond Brown & Lisa K. Stephenson