Sorry, Barbies. You’re going to be waiting a while to party with queen Nicki Minaj. Originally scheduled to hit Denver’s Pepsi Center on November 6, that show, along with her entire North American tour, has been canceled, as announced by LiveNation early Wednesday and confirmed by the superstar. As for the reasoning, the official story is that writing and recording for her recently released album, “Queen,” went up to the last minute, leaving her no time to start tour prep.
“Nicki Minaj has decided to re-evaluate elements of production on the NickiHndrxx Tour,” is the corporate speak used by LiveNation to describe the situation.
I think we can all agree that the official story, while logical, is also kind of boring. And I wouldn’t be surprised if, over the next few days, a crop of conspiracy theories will start to circulate. Rumors have already been floated that the cancelation has more to do with slow ticket sales than anything else. I’m not sure how believable that sounds, as LiveNation managed to get the corpse of Smashing Pumpkins on the road after the same rumors swirled earlier this year.
Others, I suspect, will look at the weirdness that has surrounded Minaj since the album’s release – in particular her barbs at Travis Scott – and chalk it up to some sort of mental breakdown. To me, that comes off as a bit misogynistic.
A more interesting conspiracy theory is that this all has to do with her album sales, and that by canceling the tour and then putting new tickets back on sale, bundled with her new record, she’ll be able to get that stop slot on the charts she so desperately desires. This seems like too big of a gamble to work, and that the infrastructure to pull it off in such a short period of time probably doesn’t exist.
My personal conspiracy theory is that Nicki is trying to take a page out of the Kanye playbook to keep her name out there as her album drops. There is no such thing as bad publicity, and nothing is more likely to make your stans throw extra money at you than making yourself look like an underdog in the press. Hell, I probably just helped her sell 10 extra albums. Maybe I’m in on it, too.
Cory Garcia
