Trina Doesn’t Want Anyone On Her Team Blaming Nicki Minaj
As promised, on Wednesday, Trina took to Instagram Live to thoroughly address her A&R representative, Reginald Saunders. Saunders previously spoke out about Nicki Minaj, who collaborated with Trina on her single, “BAPS” from her latest album, The One, but didn’t appear in the song’s music video.
The “Pull Over” rapper began her Instagram Live session by telling everyone to keep her name out of their mouths.
“I do not need no spokesperson. No mediator. no translator to speak for Trina. I know how to speak for myself,” Trina said.
“I don’t need nobody to tell the world what they feel. They’re opinions. Opinions are just like a**holes. Everybody has them,” Trina continued before stating that people on her team need to get approval before speaking her name.
She went on to say that she has built her entire career from the ground up and she will do whatever she has to do to protect her name and brand.
She also stated that she doesn’t condone anyone disrespecting people who were featured on her album.
“Every feature on my album are people that believe in me. That did favors for me. I didn’t pay for these features. They were favors. You know what a favor is? That means I f**k with you, that’s why I did this favor,” Trina explained.
NEW YORK, NY – JULY 11: Trina performs onstage during the VH1 Hip Hop Honors: All Hail The Queens at David Geffen Hall on July 11, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for VH1)
“I’m not here for the blame game. I don’t do the messy publicity stunts. The public. All that sh*t. I don’t do that… I’m not going to play the blame game. I’m going to take full responsibility for everything that came from my side. This is my project, my album. I will stand on 10 toes and deal with that,” Trina continued.
She then explained that there are a lot of things going on behind the scenes and she knows that her team is frustrated. However, she doesn’t condone anyone disrespecting artists that contributed to her project.
“But you’re not going to disrespect nobody. Another female artist. You’re not going to disrespect Nicki Minaj or nobody else that’s on my album because these people did this off of my face and my favor. They did it because of my relationship with them,” Trina said.
“I don’t appreciate, I don’t condone, and I don’t give the approval. For anybody. No man. Stay out of girl sh*t. Don’t come side way talking about anything that has to do with women business. I’m a boss. My face is clean on the street. I paid my dues, my tithes. Everything I gotta do, I get it done.”
“True confidence leaves no room for jealousy. When you know you are great, you have no need to hate.”
(Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)
She then explained that she feels like she did “bad business,” which was her fault when it came to her latest project, The One that she put out independently. She also directly stated that the issue had nothing to do with Nicki Minaj and a video.
“This whole Nicki Minaj video situation [that Saunders spoke out about]. This isn’t about Nicki Minaj and a video. I had a 45-minute conversation on the phone with Nicki Minaj about business. About my record, about this song, about everything. It’s not about a video. It’s bigger than a video,” Trina explained.
“The video is just a portion of what’s happening. This is more about making sure the business is right. Making sure radio is right. Making sure the record is doing whatever it needs to be doing on the radio. I had this conversation with my team full out. Full fledge. Everybody understood this. There was never a discussion that the video was never going to be done. The discussion was more so about the business. I respect that. She did her part.”
“It’s up to me and my team to do our part. That’s how I feel about it. This is my project. I worked six years for this. I don’t expect nobody, not Nick, not nobody else on the album, not my team to do what needs to be done on my project,” she continued.
NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 11: Hip-hop artist Trina attends BET 106 and Park on June 11, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for BET)
Trina went on and directly took responsibility for her A&R speaking out and placing blame on Nicki Minaj for the “BAPS” video not coming to fruition.
“My team speaking out. My team got so much to say. Imma take the blame for my team because guess what me and my team, we dropped the ball. Bad business is what caused all of this havoc to happen. It has nothing to do with any artist that was featured on my album. It has to do with me trusting people who let me down. I gotta fix that. I don’t want any pity,” Trina said.
The Miami veteran rapper also revealed that she has more important personal issues that she’s currently dealing with. She stated that she couldn’t care less about this drama while she’s currently dealing with something.
“It took so much of me to even get on this live to even address [this] because I don’t owe nobody any f**king explanation about anything that I do,” the rapper said.
She concluded her live video by saying that “there is no beef between me and Nicki Minaj. There will be no disrespect for Nicki Minaj or nobody else that’s on my album. I appreciate each and everyone that took the initiative to be a part of this album.”
Below take a look at some of the reactions to Trina’s Instagram Live session.
