After telling fans that she ran into some last-minute sampling clearance issues, Nicki Minaj has decided to push back her highly anticipated album once again. Queen is now slated to release on Aug. 17.
Minaj officially delivered the breaking news with a note to fans coinciding with her Apple Music Essentials playlist takeover:
“My darlings!!! I have a huge surprise that I can’t share until the day before #Queen drops. So in the meantime, check out this playlist I made for you guys. I did #FEFE with my new BFF from BROOKLYN. He’s a little funny looking but he’s really sweet under all those tats. 
The “FEFE” rapper pondered the idea of delaying her album again on Twitter Tuesday night (July 31), but wanted to include input from her diehard Barbz fanbase. “So there’s a record on Queen that features 1 of the greatest of all-time. Had no clue it samples the legendary Tracy Chapman – do I keep my date and lose the record? Or do I lose the record and keep my date? Do we push #Queen back 1 week? Ugh, I’m torn y’all help,” she wrote. Onika’s fourth LP was originally supposed to drop on June 15, and was delayed for the first time to Aug. 10.
Minaj later posted a poll to Twitter with both options. As of press time, pushing back the album holds the slightest of edges with a 51% majority on the split poll, but the 35-year-old ultimately decided to delay Queen an additional week until Aug. 17, where she will go head-to-head against her “Bed” collaborator and close friend Ariana Grande, who will be releasing her Sweetener album the same day.
Check out Minaj’s tweets and her curated Essentials playlist on Apple Music below.
Since I may have asked it wrong. —- vote. You guys can only imagine how much this means to me. It’s such a perfect body of work –love you. Long time.
— Chun-Li (@NICKIMINAJ) August 1, 2018