After a shaky start to her Toronto concert, Nicki Minaj proved that she deserves to be in the conversation with music giants like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift

Minaj’s fans — known as Barbz — have an energy comparable to Beyoncé’s BeyHive. Last night, they showed up in large groups, many of them dressed in pink tops and wigs. Given Minaj’s disastrous concert on Wednesday night in Montreal — when she was reportedly more than three hours late — it was a high-stakes show for the rap star. In an effort to prepare the crowd, security told fans that the rapper wasn’t expected on stage until 10:30 p.m. The Barbz were ready — when opening act, DJ Booth, started spinning at 9 p.m., playing old Minaj songs, they immediately blew the roof off the arena. High-pitched voices from the top of the arena to the floor belted Minaj’s lyrics to “Bedrock,” “Up All Night,” “Bottoms Up” and more until the artist herself took to the stage around 10 p.m. 

Nicki Minaj, 41, made her commercial debut back in 2010 with “Pink Friday” — her appeal then, as now, is how she’s able to flawlessly combine sharp lyricism with dramatic flows, theatrical personas, catchy pop hooks, queer-coded sexual expression and Black feminism. This formula has taken the former Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty from a New York mixtape rapper to Nicki Minaj, global superstar. Regardless of what you may think of Minaj’s tendency to beef with other Black female artists (a lengthy list including Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion), her success has surely busted the doors open for female rappers. 

On stage, Minaj looked comfortable with her icon status. (The show was divided into several acts with eight outfit changes.) Depending on your level of fandom, she may have occasionally leaned too heavily into the reverence her fans hold for her and not the art of performance. 

The biggest gripe with Minaj’s shows is how polished they feel. Because Minaj knows her loyal Barbz will reward her with a big reaction if she twerks, makes an exaggerated face or does anything suggestive, she does that a lot — and moments that should have felt spontaneous instead felt rehearsed.

At times, Minaj seemed to be going through the motions and taking her Barbie persona a bit too far. There was a stiffness to her performance of crowd-pleasers like “FTCU,” “Feeling Myself,” and “Needle,” with fans giving more energy than she was.

At one point, Minaj told the crowd Drake was in the building but he was refusing to come on stage, which also briefly took the wind out the Toronto crowd’s sails. 

Still, Minaj is truly head and shoulders above most rappers who can fill an arena the size of Scotiabank in her ability to MC and also deliver a quality performance without using a poorly mixed backing track or distracting visual production.   

And luckily, during the second hour of her two-hour set, she righted the ship and began matching the crowd’s energy. Kicking things off with “Chung-li” Minaj returned to the stage in a red wig and black robe, appearing more relaxed and more personable. From there, she did a perfect trio of songs — “Barbie World,” “Roman’s Revenge,” and “Monster” — which sent the already hyped crowd to another level of excitement.

For the incredible final leg of the show, with the crowd at a fever pitch, special guest R&B singer Monica did a 20-minute set, including “So Gone.”

Then Minaj returned to do all her biggest pop hits, “Anaconda,” “Super Bass,” “Moment 4 Life” (still no Drake) and — according to Minaj, just for the Toronto crowd because of how great they were — her single “Starships,” which Minaj famously refused to play at a New Year’s Eve event last year, calling the song “stupid.” 

The concert’s second half proved Minaj deserves to be in the conversation with music giants like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Last night, Minaj personified the adage: it’s not how you start, but how you finish.