Tony Yayo Bigs Up Nicki Minaj

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When Yayo wasn’t talkin beef during his RapFix Live with MTV yesterday, he named his current hottest MCs, one being fellow Queens artist Nicki Minaj. Tony recalls a near collaboration with Nicki and pushing Sha Money for a female artist on the Unit.

“She was out there and she was messing with this guy named Fendi. I was trying to do a record with her, but Fendi was like, ‘For what? Why you wanna do something with her?’ Then I left it alone. This was a long, long time ago when I was seeing her on the ‘Come Up’ DVDs, ’cause that’s how she started.

“You know what’s crazy? Like, three years ago, I said to [music executive and G-Unit producer] Sha Money [XL] … ‘You need a hot female artist, rapper. I’m telling you, that lane is open. I’m telling you, Sha, that female lane, that rapper lane is wide open.’ What she did was capture it at the right time, ’cause nobody’s out. There’s no Lil’ Kim out, there’s no Foxy … she just conquered that lane at the right time with the right people.”