Nicki Minaj Appears to Call Out Kanye West During Concert

This past weekend, the rapper was performing at the Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans when she suddenly told the DJ to cut their 2010 smash hit from her headlining set.

"I’m ‘Monster’-ed out," she said before the song halted to a stop. "And we don’t fuck with clowns."

But instead of elaborating on her statement, Minaj quickly switched gears by giving "a shout out to New Orleans," leaving fans wondering what happened.

As a few astute commentators noted though, the hitmaker's decision to axe the track came on the same day Cardi B — Minaj's longtime rival — dropped her new single "Hot Shit," which includes a verse from Ye.

Not only that, but others pointed out that Minaj was supposed to be featured in Ye's scrapped Yandhi project on the song "New Body," possibly causing some friction between the two. Shortly thereafter, Minaj also went on to tell The Shade Room that they weren't "seeing eye to eye" on the track and later confirmed that there was a fair amount of conflict over the recording, as Ye supposedly made her rewrite her verse multiple times in order to fit his own creative and spiritual vision.

"What's funny is that I did a song with Kanye, that he now wants to transform into a gospel song," Minaj said at the time before mentioning Ye's then-wife Kim Kardashian, likely in reference to a 2019 episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians that contained a brief preview of the song.

"I done wrote three different verses chile, and I don't know. We ain't seeing eye to eye on it," she said. "I don't know, but of course, I love and respect Kanye, and Kim, we'll see what happens with that."

Ye has yet to address Minaj's comments. In the meantime though, you can watch a video of the moment below.

Nicki Minaj cut Kanye’s part of Monster and said it’s because she doesn’t fw clowns.

This is after he just did a song with Cardi B.pic.twitter.com/Exn76rE95n

— hy (@TheMindOfHY) July 2, 2022

Photos via Getty / Arturo Holmes / MG22 & MEGA / GC Images