Nicki Minaj Reveals How Her Father's Death Inspired 'Pink Friday 2' Intro

Nicki Minaj recalls the final moments she shared with her late father before he passed away three years ago.

On Thursday, January 4, the New York rapper opened up about the last phone call she had with her dad in a radio interview. During the conversation, she spoke about the intro for Pink Friday 2, "Are You Gone Already."

“My father had just passed," Minaj explained. "So right after I had the baby, and it was during Corona [COVID-19], and nobody knew what was going on. So one day, I was rocking the baby and I don’t normally have the phone on me when I’m rocking him."

“But that day, as I’m rocking him, the phone rings, and I see it’s my father," she continued. "I picked up, he was very happy, and he was like, ‘Baby, I could come on Monday.’ Because he had been waiting to be able to come to Cali to help me. I kept on saying, ‘Come on out.’ He wasn’t really happy, but I knew that when he came to be with us, we were going to be happy.”

Minaj said that she woke up to a horrendous phone call from her mother later that same night. Her mom said that Minaj's dad had died after he was struck in a hit-and-run accident. She was so shocked by the call that she fainted. Minaj also remembered a dream she had about someone she loved getting into an accident just a couple days before her father's death. Everything about that experience inspired the song including its title, which she actually said to her dad during her last phone call.

“He was the happiest that I had heard him in a long time," she said. "What was interesting, why I said, ‘Are you gone already?’ is because I knew he was gone already."