Coco Chanel
by Nicki Minaj (featuring Foxy Brown)

Album: Queen (2018)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song finds Nicki Minaj hooking up with her fellow Big Apple MC Foxy Brown as the pair rap ominous threats and make references to their outer-borough New York upbringings. The title has nothing to do with the famous 20th century fashion designer Coco Chanel. Instead "Coco" is slang for cocaine and Chanel a reference to their designer wear.
  • Minaj was born in Trinidad before moving to Queens, New York and Foxy Brown is of Trinidadian heritage herself. At different points in the song, both rappers use Caribbean accents channeling their heritages.
  • This is the first time that Nicki Minaj has worked with Foxy Brown. The collaboration was very significant for Nicki as she has stated in the past that Foxy is one of her major influences. Speaking to journalist Elliott Wilson for an #CRWN interview, Minaj said: "She was meant to be on Queen and 'Coco Chanel' was meant to be the record that she got on. We fight like sisters. That's how I know the love is real. I think it's full circle to finally have her on the album."
  • The song was produced by JBeatzz, who also has a credit on Travis Scott's "Stop Trying to Be God" and Richie Souf, who has worked with the likes of Chris Brown ("High End") and Dufure and Young Thug ("All Da Smoke"). Minaj's recording engineer, Aubry "Big Juice" Delaine, recalled the story of the song to Rolling Stone:

    "At first she was gonna keep it all for herself, but then she told me, I have the perfect person to put on this: Foxy. That beat was so nasty. The fondest memory I have of that song, when Nicki first got that beat, she was in New York, it was cold as s--t, f---ing 12 degrees.

    Snowing, 12 degrees out, I had to go to the studio. They had that beat playing, she started freestyling again. That beat is straight old-school reggaeton mixed with gutter New York rap. That song screams New York. She really kept hip-hop culture in mind during this album."

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