Nicki Minaj Reflects on Final Call with Father Before His Passing: ‘Something Said, Pick Up the Phone’ [Video]

Nicki Minaj is opening up about her late father, Robert Maraj, in an Apple Music interview with Ebro Darden, sharing personal insights for Pink Friday 2. Maraj tragically passed in a car accident in February 2021.

During the interview, Minaj said that she felt compelled to answer a call from her father one day while holding her son,  whom she welcomed in September 2020.

“So right after I had the baby, and it was during corona, and nobody knew what was going on,” Minaj reflected. “But that day, as I’m rocking him, the phone rings, and I see it’s my father. I normally would not have picked up, because I don’t like to be on the phone with the baby there. I would’ve called him back. Something said, ‘Pick up the phone.’”

She continued, “I picked up, he was very happy, and he was like, ‘Baby, I could come on Monday?’ because he had been waiting to be able to come to Cali to help me. I kept on saying, ‘Come on out.’”

“He wasn’t really happy, but I knew that, when he came [to] be with us, we were going to be happy,” she added. “He is this amazing, great person, who livens up the whole house. I was like, ‘Yes, we were going to get help.’”

Later that night, Minaj said she received a call from her mother, Carol Maraj, informing her that her father was involved in a hit-and-run.

She said, “It was my mother, telling me that my father was in an accident and that she didn’t know what was going to happen, and she would call me back. And then, everything started spinning.”

Minaj added that she “couldn’t believe” how quickly everything happened, especially because “he was the happiest that I had heard him in a long time,” when they spoke a few hours prior.

She later expressed the pain of losing her father, especially since he never met his grandson. To honor his memory, she emphasized the significance of beginning Pink Friday 2 by “speaking to [her] father.”

In discussing the verses on the intro track “Are You Gone Already,” Nicki Minaj shared, “I call my son Papa Bear. So I’m telling my father, ‘You never got to meet Papa.’ And then, I begin to explain the time from my mother first calling me, telling me he was in an accident, to her calling me, telling me that he didn’t make it.”

The track features audio of Minaj speaking tenderly to her son and a sample of Billie Eilish’s “When the Party’s Over.” Minaj then raps, “You never got to meet Papa / He sweet proper, he keep Mama on my toes,” detailing how tragedy disrupted their plans for a reunion in the near future.

According to reports, Minaj had a challenging relationship with her father due to abuse towards her mother and addiction. In recent times, she’s openly discussed efforts to reconcile in interviews and on social media.