Kanye West would have dropped his star-studded Monster hit from his My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy album if Nicki Minaj hadn't intervened.
Minaj celebrated the seven year anniversary of the 2010 collaboration on Instagram on Tuesday (24Oct17) by revealing the song, which also featured JAY-Z, and Rick Ross, almost didn't make the project's final tracklisting because Kanye was sure the No Frauds rapper's verse would overshadow all of his other work.
Alongside a clip of her Monster video appearance, Nicki wrote, "Kanye called me to tell me Jay put a verse on this song & that he was still deciding if he would put it on his album. Haha. It was like an hour long call where I tried to convince him to let the song stay on his album. He felt this (Nicki's) verse would end up being the talk of the album. I said: YOU'RE KANYE WEST!!!!"
Hip-hop fans have been praising Nicki's rhymes on Monster ever since, insisting she bested her male peers on the track, and even JAY-Z was blown away by her talent.
She added, "When I saw him, Jay said: 'when u got so nice (good)'? I said: 'I been nice' (sic)! Ha!"
Nicki then went on to thank Kanye for giving her the opportunity to shine: "Kanye, thank you for being the genius you are," she continued. "You always put others first. I fought u every step of the way but it worked out. (He wanted me to add more of that growling monster voice and I felt it was over kill.) He wouldn't give in. In the end, maybe he was right. Ha (sic)!"
She also shared that it was Kanye's then-girlfriend, Amber Rose, who introduced the pair, while mutual friend Blac Chyna served as her "stunt double" in the accompanying music video.