Sabrina Carpenter looks poised to continue her reign as a (short and horny) pop princess, with rumors emerging that the singer has slated a collaboration with Nicki Minaj.
The source of the speculation is X page Pop Tingz, who shared a post claiming that the pair are “rumored to be releasing a collaboration soon.” More eagle-eyed fans might have seen this coming, since Minaj showed support for Carpenter’s latest album, Short n’ Sweet, back in August, prompting a reply from the pop star herself.
“This one’s for Nicki,” Carpenter wrote on X. For those unaware of the lore behind that post, Carpenter was, at the time, tussling against Travis Scott for the top spot on the Billboard charts. Her reference to Nicki during that chart battle was believed to be a callback to a similar chart war between Scott and Minaj back in 2018, when Minaj accused the fellow rapper of touting his then-girlfriend Kylie Jenner to boost album sales and dethrone her album, Queen.
The whole ordeal was rather messy (this is Minaj, after all), with the “Starships” singer later describing Scott as an “Auto-tune man” — a pretty subdued jab by Minaj’s standards. The beef between the rappers was long considered dead and buried, until Carpenter reignited it with her call-back mention of Minaj in the X post earlier this year.
That interaction naturally fuelled speculation that the princess of pop and queen of rap would share the studio for a collaborative single, but further details around the rumor are not yet known. It’s possible that Minaj could feature on a remixed version of a song from Short n’ Sweet, or that the pair could simply make an entirely new song about both being short-statured icons under 5’2” feet tall.
In any case, news of the potential collaboration has prompted a mixed (and quite hilarious) reaction from fans. Some have reveled in their excitement, saying they “love both of them sm” and that the rumored track will “break the internet.” Others are a little less enthused by the idea, writing that they “don’t want it” and that Carpenter’s “first flop is coming.” Elsewhere, some fans are fearing that the pair will inevitably enter a feud as a result of the collaboration, given Minaj’s history of creating more beef than the meat section at Walmart.
In the past few years, Minaj has given Ryan Murphy’s Feud copious material with notable fall-outs with Scott, Cardi B, Miley Cyrus, Mariah Carey, and more recently, Megan Thee Stallion, to whom she devoted a diss track making fun of the rapper being shot in the foot by Tory Lanez. With that history, fans are urging Carpenter to protect herself, with one responding to the news of the rumored collaboration by telling the pop singer to “quit while you’re ahead” and others leading calls to “SAVE SABRINA.”
Meanwhile, some fans enlisted AI to create an image of Carpenter’s head morphed onto Minaj’s body, but the small height of both artists remained the same. It marks the most recent instance of Carpenter being linked to a fellow musician during the rollout of Short n’ Sweet, which she’s currently touring with a range of concert outfits that have sent fans into a tizzy.
Earlier this year, Carpenter fuelled speculation that much of the album is about Camilla Cabello — the current girlfriend of her ex, Shawn Mendes — and elsewhere caught strays from Dionne Warwick, who said she couldn’t relate to Carpenter’s lyrics.
Carpenter being name-checked alongside such buzzy names is a sign of artistic growth, which is always welcome news for someone who is five foot tall.