Nicki Minaj has shared a new song titled “Last Time I Saw You.” The song comes as the Trinidadian-born, Queens-raised rapper/singer prepares to drop her fifth studio LP, Pink Friday 2. (The record’s release was initially scheduled for October 20 but has since been pushed back to November 17.)
“Last Time I Saw You” comes from the soft side of Nicki’s emotional spectrum, a heartfelt expression of regret for being emotionally unavailable to a past love. “I wish I’da hugged you tighter the last time that I saw you / I wish I didn’t waste precious time the night when I called you,” she sings on the hook over a forlorn, bass-heavy beat. “I knew the moment I met you that I’d always adore you / Maybe I pushed you away because I thought that I’d bore you.”
In her rapped verse, she expands on the sentiment in a familiar, slightly Seussian flow: “So close, but we were so distant / Wish I’da known in that instant / Ignored the hints or I missed it / I killed it.”
Outside of Pink Friday 2’s rollout, Minaj has stayed busy with big-ticket collabs in the past few months, linking with Ice Spice to reimagine Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” (for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film’s “official companion” record, Barbie The Album), and name/chin-checking Natalie Nunn in her verse on Lil Uzi Vert’s “Endless Fashion.”
