Nicki Minaj's image and style has changed dramatically over her career. She started with minimal makeup and modest clothing but gained recognition with her debut single "Bedrock". Her style became more sexualized with heavy makeup and revealing clothing afterwards. She found success marketing herself as a sex symbol similar to Lil' Kim. Later, her outfits became even more outrageous to attract attention and promote her album. Recently, her style has become more sophisticated and simplistic, reflecting her maturity as an artist and the maturation of her target audience.

2. Nicki minaj started off wearing very minimal make up, non
descript yet seductive clothing and black mid length hair. This
was during the time where she was still trying to get
recognised for her work. Here is an image of her before she
had her first hit.

3. Once her debut “Bedrock” was realised, her image changed dramatically. She started using much more make up
and wearing even less clothing than before. The use of much more extravagant choices in hairstyles also came
into play for Nicki. Lots of people speculated that she originally took most of her fashion inspiration from Little
Kim, who was the most successful female rapper of her time. She also made much of her success through
marketing herself as a sex symbol. Her campaign images were often highly sexualised and her relationship with
Biggie Smalls also rocketed her career. Nicki was also seen to do a similar thing in regards to Little Wayne and
almost ramping up speculations as to whether they were together or not. On the left, one can see Photographs
of Nicki Minaj in the music video for “Bedrock” and some others of her change in hairstyle and lastly, one
illustrating her ambiguous relationship with Little Wayne. To the right, there are photographs of Little Kim and
Nicki Minaj up together to illustrate the similarities and also one portraying her relationship with Biggie Smalls.

4. During the next part of Nicki Minaj’s
career, her outfits reached a new
height of unusual, this meant that
she conjured up much more
attention on the music scene and in
turn her first album ‘Pink Friday’ was
extremely succesful in August 2010.
These outrages choice of outfits
may have been centred around her
target audience and the trends at
the time. Just before her we say
Lady Gaga winning over her fairly
young audiences with crazy outfit
choices and it could be said that
Nicki Minaj was trying to emulate
this style of self marketing.

5. The last stage of Nicki Minaj’s image has been
said to have been her most sophisticated.
She has ditched her wild wigs and obscure
outfit choices and gone for a much more
simplistic approach. This change may have
been an attempt to show her growth in
terms of her maturity in terms of music. Her
target audience when she released Pink
Friday is probably the same as her target
audience now but it seems like Nicki realises
that her target market is growing up, as well
as fashion changing.