<\/p>\n
In a new interview, the rapper said frustration with Barack Obama\u2019s comments to Black male voters and her long-running issues with Jay-Z influenced her political shift.<\/p>\n
Nicki Minaj has laid out exactly what she says pushed her toward Donald Trump and away from the Democratic Party, and the names she drops are Barack Obama and Jay-Z.<\/p>\n
In a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine, the 43-year-old Trinidadian rapper explained that her political conversion began with what she describes as an unspoken expectation in the music industry that Black entertainers would fall in line behind the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
As theGrio previously reported, Minaj first revealed publicly that empathy for Trump drove<\/a> her political shift during an appearance on \u201cThe Katie Miller Podcast\u201d in February, and she has since become one of the administration\u2019s most prominent Black celebrity supporters, attending the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner in April. The Independent reported<\/a> that what most directly triggered her shift were Jay-Z and comments from former President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n On Obama, Minaj pointed to his 2024 campaign trail speech for Kamala Harris, in which he suggested some Black male voters were uncomfortable with putting a woman in power. Minaj\u2019s criticism was pointed. \u201cI just saw so many videos of Black men saying that they didn\u2019t like the way they felt about that speech that Obama gave,\u201d she said. \u201cThey felt like they weren\u2019t being listened to.\u201d<\/p>\n On Jay-Z, Minaj pointed to their long-running rivalry and her accusations that Roc Nation has wielded disproportionate industry power against her. \u201cJay-Z ended up costing Obama a lot, whether he knows it or not,\u201d Minaj said, claiming, \u201cLots of rappers don\u2019t like Jay-Z and were afraid to say it.\u201d<\/p>\n Minaj said the frustrations compounded what she described as a broader pressure to conform politically. \u201cIt\u2019s been ingrained in everyone\u2019s brain in the music business that we are supposed to be a Democratic family,\u201d she said. \u201cI just knew they would not like me supporting Trump.\u201d She added that since going public with her support, she\u2019s \u201cnever felt happier\u201d and \u201cnever felt better.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you can be yourself, you\u2019re happier,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Independent said it has contacted representatives for Obama and Jay-Z for comment.<\/p>\n More must-reads:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a new interview, the rapper said frustration with Barack Obama\u2019s comments to Black male voters and her long-running issues with Jay-Z influenced her political shift. Nicki Minaj has laid out exactly what she says pushed her toward Donald Trump and away from the Democratic Party, and the names she drops are Barack Obama and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2417085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[22466,473240,347195,22389,344870,335498,473239],"class_list":["post-2417084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-barack-obama","tag-black-entertainers","tag-democratic-party","tag-donald-trump","tag-jay-z","tag-nicki-minaj","tag-political-shift"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Nicki-Minaj-says-Barack-Obama-and-Jay-Z-pushed-her-toward.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2417084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2417086,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2417084\/revisions\/2417086"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2417085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2417084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2417084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2417084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}