At the MTV 2022 Video Music Awards on Sunday night, Nicki Minaj was presented with the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. This was the rapper’s sixth appearance on the VMA stage and her first live performance since 2018.
Minaj, who has been nominated for 17 VMAs and has won five times, took home the award for best hip-hop video in 2011. She was nominated in the same category this year for “Do We Have a Problem,” a song she wrote alongside Lil Baby.
The rapper opened her set in a Barbie box decorated with Nicki’s likeness, and then she sang a medley of her best songs, including “Roman’s Revenge,” “Bees in the Trap,” “Chun-Li,” “Moment 4 Life,” “Super Bass,” and “Anaconda.” With a performance of her recently released single, “Super Freaky Girl,” Minaj ended her show.
Nicki Minaj is back, Barbs—first at the Met Gala, now at the MTV Video Music Awards. After a lengthy set of hits, including her most recent single, “Super Freaky Girl,” which has just achieved her first solo Billboard No. 1, the rapper accepted the 2022 MTV Video Vanguard Award (formerly known as the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award) on Sunday.
The rapper acknowledged all the rappers who had influenced her as well as the musicians with whom she had worked over the years, including Kanye West, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Madonna, and Rihanna as she took the award from a group of admirers. She continued by paying tribute to Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson.
