DJ Akademiks has beefed with Nicki Minaj for many years now. However, that beef rarely reached more extreme heights than it did in 2019. VladTV recently reshared a clip from a 2022 interview with Akademiks in which the pair discussed threatening DMs Minaj had sent to Akademiks. Amid the myriad threats Minaj leveled at him, one message included the threat that Kenneth Petty would be coming to break Akademiks’ jaw. Minaj also appeared to threaten the DJ’s family. While Vlad called Minaj “cowardly”, Akademiks referred to Minaj as a “gangsta bully”.

However, these threats and the weaponization of Petty take on a whole new light four years after they were originally made. Petty is now a sex offender. Furthermore, he was recently sentenced to 120 days of house arrest after making threats against Offset. Furthermore, the recent behavior of Minaj and Petty appears to suggest that this is a core function of their marriage. They violently threaten people they don’t like, with Petty serving as their enforcer.

DJ Akademiks Shades The Barbz

In the same interview, Akademiks also spoke on the fanatical nature of Minaj’s fanbase, colloquially known as the Barbz or the Barbz Army. “You know why Nicki’s good? I wanna say great…her audience, and she has the best audience in Hip Hop. Them Barbz, they will never believe anything—and Nicki does a good job of not making it apparent. You ‘heard’ it, you didn’t ‘see’ it. So, like, when you say it, her audience is gonna take it as, ‘Oh, you’re just hating on Nicki’,” Akademiks noted.

He continued. “[Minaj’s] fanbase is so solid…if she’s not the victim, no one believes it.” Vlad attempted to draw a comparison to the diehard fans of Michael Jackson, who refuse to believe claims about Jackson’s children or alleged crimes against children. However, Akademiks rejected the comparison, arguing that a bigger proportion of MJ fans were more willing to acknowledge his faults.