Kanye West removes Nicki Minaj's verse from 'New Body', upset fans say 'nobody will listen to it without Queen'
It has now been confirmed that rapper Nicki Minaj's verse on Kanye West's upcoming song 'New Body' has been scrapped, with the Yeezy mogul planning to release an alternate version of the song instead. The reworked song will reportedly feature on West's 10th studio album 'Donda', which has been named after the rapper's mother and is slated for release on July 24.
Prior to this recent development, a leaked version of the original 'New Body' track, which featured guest contributions from Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla Sign, had gone viral on TikTok soon after it surfaced online last year. At the time it was made, the track was expected to feature on West's forthcoming album 'Yandhi', but it never released. Talking about her verse on the original 'New Body' song, Minaj had previously stated she was "going to say some real a** s*** that b****** need to hear, too, and that they want to say and be feeling like they can’t say."
Although the original lyrics talked about body shaming and the social stigma surrounding the aftermath of plastic surgery, the song was later reworked by West to incorporate a positive Christian-themed message. This was later confirmed by Minaj, who said that the new song was now more gospel-themed, but the final version was still up in the air. Minaj stated, "I done wrote three different verses chile, and I don’t know. We ain’t seeing eye to eye on it. I don’t know, but of course, I love and respect Kanye, and Kim, we’ll see what happens with that." The reworked gospel song was later previewed at listening parties for West's ninth studio album 'Jesus Is King', which released in 2019.
However, it later emerged that due to creative differences between Minaj and West, the song had been scrapped from the October 2019 release of the 'Jesus Is King' album altogether. The original version had been receiving a lot of praise and attention after it went viral on Tiktok in July 2019, with fans and critics noting that it was one of the highlights from the leaked 'Yandhi' tracks. Last month, in June 2020, Minaj revealed that she would ask West about potentially releasing the song since it was going viral on Tiktok. Later that month, she also urged her Barbz fanbase to petition West's wife Kim Kardashian to release the song as well.
More recently, on July 18, West revealed the tracklist for his upcoming 'Donda' album but then later deleted the tweet. However, 'New Body' did feature on the finalized tracklist for that album, alongside other tracks like 'Hurricane', 'God's Country', '24' and 'Off the Grid'. However, now that it's been confirmed that Minaj will not feature on the latest version of 'New Body', (apparently due to conflicting opinions over Harriet Tubman), fans are voicing their disappointment online.
One fan noted, "So Kanye decided to throw away Nicki's verse on 'New Body'??? Who’s gonna tell him that NOBODY will listen to that song without Queen Nicki." As another user declared, "The main ones asking for the track are the Barbz, what is he thinking?"
A follower tweeted, "I don't know bout the rest of yall, but I just skip to Nicki’s part of the song then turn it off after she’s done when I listen to it on SoundCloud solo... Kanye gonna take an L with that one." Yet another fan concurred, "Did anyone actually listen to the parts of New Body that Nicki wasn’t in?"
Other fans were posting heartbroken messages online and frustrated gifs along with captions like, "The fact we’re gonna be deprived from Nicki’s verse." As another fan pointed out, "A loss. Her verse literally carried the whole song." Other Barbz were tweeting "We don't want it, then it's gonna flop hard, she was the reason it went viral on TikTok." As another Nicki Minaj fan concluded, "Watch us never listen to that song because Nicki’s verse was the only one that mattered."
