Is Nicki Minaj the Six Billion Dollar Woman?

Photo: Norman Jean Roy/Vogue

Nicki Minaj has been the cover story of more than 30 of the world’s most prominent magazines. Such titles include Rolling Stone, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, W, XXL, Complex — and multiple editions of Time and Vogue. Of the latter, Minaj became the first Trinidad and Tobago-born woman to realize this feat. In so doing, the rapper bested TT’s internationally crowned beauties Janelle Commissiong, Giselle Laronde and Wendy Fitzwilliam.

But Minaj’s media arsenal goes far beyond the above titles. In addition to numerous red-carpet appearances for promoting several movies, including Barbershop: The Next Cut and The Other Woman, the St. James, Trinidad, native has appeared in prominent venues like the Grammys, American Music Awards, BET Awards and MTV’s VMAs, among others. There is also something to be said of the shrewd marketeer’s ability to engage the President of the United States like none of her peers.

Given the above, some Minaj supporters argue that because the rapper’s rise to fame coincides with the rise of social media, allowing her to cultivate a global audience of tens of millions in which the nation of Trinidad and Tobago is also promoted, these metrics have a projected aggregated value to TT in the sum of $60 billion USD.

How much, if any, does Minaj earn from the TT Tourist Board or nation? No one seems to have an answer. But if there is any truth to the $60 billion projection, and Minaj were to receive 10% of it, it would make her a woman worth $6 billion. It might also make Minaj net a Forbes cover for her magazine collection.