Months after Nicki Minaj decided to go no man for the new year, details are still surfacing about the disputed queen of hip-hop’s two-year-long relationship with rapper Meek Mill. Back before the breakup, Nicki fans assumed that Meek spent his free time—while Nicki was off making hits and touring the world, that is—wandering around the mansion and maxing out his girlfriend’s Seamless account. Unfortunately, it appears that Meek was actually pretty busy gossiping about Nicki whenever he wandered out of her earshot.
Our first piece of evidence came courtesy of Remy Ma’s “ShETHER,” a diss track so down and dirty that even Minaj’s bitter ex Safaree Samuels called it “the most disrespectful record I’ve ever heard in my life.” Between ruminations on Minaj’s rhyme-writing abilities and a litany of supposed ex-lovers, Remy Ma sneaks in this little anecdote: “I saw Meek at All-Star; he told me your ass drop / He couldn’t fuck you for three months because your ass dropped / Now I don’t think you understand how bad her ass got / The implants that you had put in her ass popped.” Imagine you’re one of the most successful female artists of all time and your boyfriend can’t even get through a sporting event without informing your competition about an ass injection gone wrong. Seriously, Meek, Nicki was already paying the bills and letting you stand next to her in Instagrams—the least you could do is keep your mouth shut.
The world will probably never know if Nicki got some genuinely rotten plastic surgery, or just came up with a really creative way not to sleep with Meek Mill. What we do know is that that wasn’t the only personal conversation Meek had while he was still dating Minaj. According to Rick Ross’s new album Rather You Than Me, Meek Mill was getting relationship advice left and right.
On “Apple of My Eye,” the album’s intro track, Ross explains, “I told Meek I wouldn’t trust Nicki, instead of beefing with your dog you just give him some distance.” Imma let you finish, Rick Ross, but I didn’t see you at Meek Mill’s side back when Drake was giving him a very public pummeling. Now that Nicki’s moved on, Meek is finally ready to stand up to her—he Instagrammed a picture to promote his label boss’s new album, captioned, “Rozay been told me don’t trust you.” Pretty bold statement from a guy who allegedly cheated on his girlfriend with a Philadelphia boutique owner.
While Nicki isn’t Ross’s only target—the insults he launches at Birdman on the new album have already caused a major stir—his warning not to trust the female rapper hits a nerve. After all, this isn’t the first time that Nicki has been attacked by one of Meek’s bros.
In 2016, rapper Beanie Sigel accused Nicki of being behind Meek Mill and Drake’s infamous beef, theorizing, “In my point of view? You was laying in the bed one night, you rolled over and you looked at her and you asked her, ‘You fuck that nigga?’ And she ain’t answer you in the way you wanted to.” In citing exactly zero sources, Sigel came across as little more than a Nicki Minaj-Meek Mill fan fiction writer. Of course, as a fellow Philadelphia rapper, his working hypothesis quickly went viral.
Putting aside the fact that Meek and Beanie have their own complicated Philly frenemy thing going on, Sigel’s statement says a whole lot about how an overtly sexual woman is perceived in the hip-hop community. While Nicki Minaj has gotten a good deal of praise for exerting her sexual autonomy—and has certainly praised herself for it—she’s also become a go-to target for body-shaming and slut-shaming. Making fun of Minaj’s body and mocking her promiscuity were the main two components of “ShETHER”—well, that and a whole lot of threats to do bodily harm to Barbie. Calling out these insults and accusations as misogynistic is a no-brainer. After all, no male rapper would be accused of sleeping with every single sexy lady he danced with in a music video—and if he did sleep with them, he wouldn’t be shamed for it.
Drake and Nicki had worked together long before Meek Mill was in the picture. So while Meek may have felt threatened by the long hours Nicki was putting in with her Canadian collaborator, he has no one to blame but himself for the Twitter tantrum that subsequently turned into a beef bloodbath. Meek might have embarrassed himself when he went after Drake (edit: he definitely embarrassed himself), but letting his ex be labeled as an untrustworthy, slutty catalyst is an equally bad look.
Accusations of dishonesty are particularly rich coming from Rick Ross, too. When he’s not badmouthing his boy’s ex, Ross has repeatedly been called out for lying in his rhymes. To hear other rappers tell it, Ross isn’t as hard as he presents himself.
In 2011, Ice-T insisted that, “Rick Ross stole a nigga’s name,” referring to the drug kingpin “Freeway” Ricky Ross, adding, “He thinks he’s [Freeway] Rick Ross, he thinks he’s Larry Hoover, he thinks he’s Big Meech, he thinks he’s MC Hammer, he thinks he’s Tupac. Like, who the fuck are you really, dude?” In 2015, 50 Cent picked up where Ice-T left off, Instagramming a photo of Ross’s past life before he made it big, captioned, “A correctional officer who raps like a drug dealer till he believes it.” Party rockers LMFAO also reportedly called Rick Ross a “fake thug,” but we don’t really need to talk about that. Nicki Minaj may be guilty of trusting the wrong plastic surgeon, but she doesn’t seem half as untrustworthy as the rapper who allegedly stole a criminal’s name for street cred.