Nicki Minaj covers the November issue of Marie Claire. I’ve become something of a Nicki Minaj fan over the past few years especially, and let me just say: she’s a lot prettier than this cover shot. She’s at her prettiest when her hair is down and she’s wearing really minimal, natural-style makeup. I don’t know what this cover is trying to do, except maybe make her look like a sexy secretary? I do appreciate the fact that she’s sort of covered up on the cover though. Minaj is a bit like Sofia Vergara in that sense: her shtick is short, low-cut and body-con. It’s nice to see her in something different. As for the interview, it’s good.

On young women’s goals: “Nowadays, I feel like [young women] see marrying into money—I think that’s a big thing now. I don’t want that to be a woman’s goal in life. I want your goal in life to be to become an entrepreneur, a rich woman, a career-driven woman. You have to be able to know that you need no man on this planet at all, period, and he should feel that, because when a man feels that you need him, he acts differently.”

On competing with male rappers: “I don’t need to read a book about [business]. I can look at someone’s career and just pinpoint the dos and the don’ts, and the one person I’ve done that with for my entire career was Jay Z. He did such a great job being an authentic street guy and a businessman, and I was like, Why aren’t there women doing that, taking the success from rap and channeling it into their empire? I felt like anything he could do, I could do.”

On the double standard that exists for women of color in the media: “When Kim Kardashian’s naked picture came out, [Sharon Osbourne] praised it, and my fans attacked her for being such a hypocrite. So it wasn’t trashy and raunchy when a white woman did it, but it was when a black woman did it? It’s quite pathetic and sad, but that is my reality, and I’ve gotten accustomed to just shutting it down.”

On the people living with violence in our country: “We tend to not remember the black women who are mourning these men and who are thinking, Oh, my God, what am I going to tell my child now about where his father is, and the struggle it is for black women to then move on after they lose their husband or their boyfriend … The strong women in these inner cities often go unnoticed … no one really ever puts a hand out to them.”

On collaborating with Beyoncé: “Every time Bey and I do something together, I see how women are inspired, and it has nothing to do with how we look. It has to do with how we are owning who we are and telling other women you should be the boss of your own career and the brains behind your life or your decisions or your art. I just love that feeling.”

[From Marie Claire]

I’m totally cool with Minaj modeling her career after Jay-Z’s career. If I was a rapper (???) I would want to be like Jay-Z too and I would actively model my career like Jay’s. I’m also totally fine with Minaj telling her younger fans – I imagine they would be teen girls? – to aim higher than being a rich man’s wife or girlfriend or mistress. That’s always a good message. Minaj is also right about the forgotten black women in our society, the mothers, daughters, sisters, girlfriends, wives and friends of the men who meet violent ends.

My one “eh, not really” moment with this interview? The example she uses for the double standards of how white women and black women are treated in the media. Like, she’s absolutely right that race plays a huge part in the narratives we’re fed about women, sexuality, nudity, respectability, consent and more. But is Kim Kardashian’s nude photo moment the best example of that double standard? I ask because Kim got a ton of sh-t for posting a semi-nude photo. She was criticized online and in print media, she was criticized by other celebrities and it became this absurd cultural-touchstone moment about feminism, body-confidence and more. That example is also absurd when you think about how many different examples of cultural appropriation from the Kardashian-Jenners that Minaj could have used instead!

Photos courtesy of Kai Z Feng/Marie Claire.