Nicki Minaj returned on Friday with “We Go Up,” a diss-packed new track featuring fellow New York City rapper Fivio Foreign. The song apparently won’t be featured on Nicki’s forthcoming fifth album, as Minaj revealed via Instagram that it was “scrapped” from the project. Nevertheless, it’s a spirited collaboration that quickly rose to No. 2 on the Genius Top Songs chart.
“We Go Up” features production from Szamz, Swizzy, and Papi Yerr. Nicki fans will recognize the last of those beatmakers as the man behind Minaj’s recent single “Do We Have a Problem?” That song features a shoutout from Nicki to Fivio, and the intro of “We Go Up,” Foreign returns the favor, asserting his and Nicki’s place in the game.
It’s only one king, it’s only one queen, there’s two crowns, nigga
Minaj opens the first verse by engaging in one of her favorite pastimes: taking shots at female rappers who bite her style.
Uh, you bitches be jackin’ me like the Ripper
Uh, I am a hustler, I can sell water to Flipper
Nicki gets even more aggressive a few lines later, dropping vicious insults that some observers believe were meant for Cardi B, Minaj’s sometime sparring partner.
Let’s see
After all of that surgery, you are still ugly
Now that is what gets me
The imagery gets a little more violent in the second verse, where Nicki makes allusions to gunplay.
Southside Jamaica, we mobbin’ them bricks, so pull up with them blicks
Some of the best shooters out of New York, they don’t play with the Knicks (Ayo)
Fivio takes the third verse and stays in the same aggressive lane.
Ain’t no blicky with me, I got Nicki with me (Nah)
And she Barbied up (Lil’ bitch, yeah)
If we see ’em, we shooting the party up (Grrt)
We ain’t squashing so don’t try to “sorry” us (Nah)
After the song landed, Minaj reiterated that it was not intended for her next album. “Not a Republic Records single, no bag on it, just a surprise for the fans,” she wrote on Instagram.
You can check out all the lyrics to “We Go Up” on Genius now.
