Nicki Minaj: 'Beyonce and I inspire women'

Nicki Minaj loves that she and Beyonce inspire women every time they team up.

The pair are close friends, and also collaborated on Nicki's Feeling Myself and Beyonce's Flawless remix. But in a new interview with Marie Claire magazine, Nicki said her work with Beyonce goes beyond music.

"Every time Bey and I do something together, I see how women are inspired, and it has nothing to do with how we look," she said. "It has to do with how we are owning who we are and telling other women you should be the boss of your own career and the brains behind your life or your decisions or your art. I just love that feeling.”

Beyonce also inspires Nicki herself, while the singer's husband Jay Z was the main motivation for Nicki's determination to succeed in the largely male-dominated rap genre.

Speaking about her admiration for the 46-year-old rapper, Nicki explained: "I don’t need to read a book about (business). I can look at someone’s career and just pinpoint the dos and the don’ts, and the one person I’ve done that with for my entire career was Jay Z.

"He did such a great job being an authentic street guy and a businessman, and I was like, Why aren’t there women doing that, taking the success from rap and channeling it into their empire? I felt like anything he could do, I could do."

Nicki works hard to promote feminism through her music and extra-curricular activities. And she is keen to encourage her fans to be independent in their career choices, and not rely on men for money or success.

"Nowadays, I feel like (young women) see marrying into money - I think that’s a big thing now," she said. "I don’t want that to be a woman’s goal in life. I want your goal in life to become an entrepreneur, a rich woman, a career-driven woman. You have to be able to know that you need no man on this planet at all, period, and he should feel that, because when a man feels that you need him, he acts differently.”