How we lost millions so we can feature Nicki Minaj – Iyanya reveals

Popular Nigerian singer, Iyanya has revealed how his team spent quite a huge sum of money just to get American singer, Nicki Minaj on a song.

The Afrobeats singer claimed to have spent millions of naira at the peak of his career, which was between 2012 and 2014 just trying to feature American-Trinidadian singer, Nicki Minaj.

According to him, during the early years, he and Triple MG Boss, Ubi Franklin made moves to collaborate with Nicki after Kukere was released and became a massive hit.

His music producer, D’Tunez had to modify the beat for the song for the creation of ‘Your Waist’, which also became a hit.

Iyanya, along with Ubi Franklin, decided to take the song to the next level – on a global scale and it was agreed that Nicki Minaj should be featured on the remix.

The duo started looking for funds to make it a reality and connect with the super Bass crooner.

Narrating the ordeal, Iyanya stated that they had to fly to Atlanta to arrange the meeting, shockingly they were informed that such a feature with the superstar will cost nothing less that $200,000.

They were only able to raise $70,000 after contacting many people for financial assistance. Sadly, Nicki’s management said such an amount is not enough.

He explained that the money they spent on transport and other miscellaneous while trying to meet her amounted to 23,000 dollars which was about 4 million naira in 2013.

The budding singer said they eventually returned to Nigeria after an unsuccessful outing.

In his wordse; “So kukere was so massive we did all we could to get it out there and then came the pressure of the next single. We had “Flavour” already produced and recorded but for some reason we felt it wasn’t the next single after kukere.

On one beautiful morning we decided to remake “Kukere” and turn it into a new song that became “Ur waist” Bigups to @Therealdtunes changed everything and we recorded “Ur waist” and we were clear that was the next single.

Ur waist was so massive we decided it should go international and we needed the right artiste to help with that journey. @ubifranklin1 suggested Nicki Minaj and I asked how we’re gonna pay for that, he laughed and said “if your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough”

We started making contacts to who will get us Nicki Minaj and we found someone Who had direct contacts and he asked that we fly to Atlanta for a meeting with him and then he will take us to meet Nicki Minaj for the collaboration.

@ubifranklin1 and I flew straight to Atlanta and we started meetings that will lead to the reason when we were in Atlanta. Omo na so them start to carry us go club yo light bottles to show say money Dey omo no be person tell us to wise o.

Before we met Nicki Minaj our contact person had taken us to meet R.Kelly and 2chains, And a few other celebs who were in Atlanta at the time. Oyaaaa the day don reach to meet Nicki Minaj, na so them come tell us say to get her on a verse we needed $200,000, we started making calls to raise the money, we pushed and we were able to raise $70,000 they said Nope.

We called all the chairmen at on our contact list and nada. Now here is the painful part, our tickets, Hotel for at least 10Days already, food and car hire service was already around $23,000 and then @ubifranklin1 started calculating that we for just stay Nigeria and added that money to our $70k. We beg tire and nothing

The last Night before we left Atlanta, we were invited to a studio and the message was “get there at 11:45pm no entry after 11:45pm @ubifranklin1 got a car ready for 9pm and the place was around Buckhead not far from our hotel(10mins) but we wanted to be there 2hours early

She show studio sha at 1:am, she didn’t come for our recording, she came for a diffident song, but our contact wanted us to know we he had the direct link to get her on a song. We tried to take pictures them tell us say we no fit take pictures. Our plan was take pictures send back home to give our chairmen Ginger to see we could raise the money, omo zero picture, zero collabo na so we return naija continue our Hustle.”

So kukere was so massive we did all we could to get it out there and then came the pressure of the next single.
We had “Flavour” already produced and recorded but for some reason we felt it wasn’t the next single after kukere.

— its iyanyaaaaaa💥 (@Iyanya) March 30, 2023

Ur waist was so massive we decided it should go international and we needed the right artiste to help with that journey.@ubifranklin1 suggested Nicki Minaj and I asked how we’re gonna pay for that, he laughed and said “if your dreams don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough”😂😂

— its iyanyaaaaaa💥 (@Iyanya) March 30, 2023