Ganja Burn

Album: Queen (2018)
Charted: 60
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Songfacts®:

  • The opening song from Queen is a rhythmic track with mellow Afro-pop vibes, courtesy of J. Reid of Chevi Muzi. The beatmaker also produced Minaj's "Chun-Li" and "Barbie Tingz" singles. The track's title is a double entendre, in which the Queen Barbz is "burning all the weeds" out of her life highlighting that she's out to reclaim her throne.
  • According to Minaj, this is her favourite track on Queen. However, the title was originally listed "Ganja Burns" as the rapper was "so sleep deprived" she wrote 'burns' instead of 'burn' when they were pushing her for the tracklist.

    Minaj also expressed a willingness to make a change on the track, as after listening back to it after Queen had been dropped, she hated how low she'd made the hook.
  • Minaj boasts about writing her own rhymes on the second verse:

    Unlike a lot of these hoes whether wack or lit
    At least I can say I wrote every rap I spit
    Put my blood, sweat and tears in perfecting my craft


    It's been suggested this is a subliminal diss towards fellow female New York rapper Cardi B who worked with co-writers when creating her debut album Invasion of Privacy.
  • Minaj's recording engineer, Aubry "Big Juice" Delaine, recalled the story of the song:

    "That was crazy, because she probably freestyled 65 percent, 75 percent of the song," he told Rolling Stone. "She got the beat from her producer J. Reid, head it, told me to load it up and ran in the booth. It was kind of the same with 'Chun-Li.' She was playing around, singing, 'ganja burn, ganja burn, ganja burn,' and then when she listened back, she was like, 'that s--t's hard!' I wanna say the hook is still the freestyle she laid when she first stepped in the booth. She pulled that s--t out of thin air."
  • The fiery desert-based video was directed by collaborative photographers Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott who also did the album artwork. The visuals add a storyline to the record cover, which shows Minaj dressed as an African queen.

Comments: 1

  • Lau Rence from ZambiaNicki Minaj is the best of all time
    Most songs I play they sound connected to her life time.
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