Baby Tate has been accused of biting Nicki Minaj‘s style for being animated in her newest freestyle, but she was quick to let her critics know that’s not the case.
Following the release of her From The Block freestyle on February 8, Tate has been getting a lot of love for the creative bars – but some Barbz felt that her animated delivery and her look, which incorporated a wig with bangs, were a direct bite off of Minaj.
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“Sounds like you have potential but looks like you biting Nicki Minaj’s style too much. You’ll always be compared to her if you don’t develop your own look and mannerisms,” one fan wrote.
Tate responded: “Nicki Minaj is not the first or LAST person to blink their fcking eyes, tilt their head, or be in a general sense ANIMATED in rap or any other genre. I am a THEATER GIRL. I am and will forever be animated, silly, goofy, have fun and fully express that the way I so CHOOSE. If you in your limited mind can only see someone else when I do that, it’s not on me. I’m Baby Tate. PERIOD.”
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She then added more on Twitter/X after another critic told her she should just pay homage to Nicki.
“I did. When I first came out. It’s 2024 & I’m on my 9th year in the game babe,” she wrote. “YALL LATE as to who I am and that is not my fault or responsibility to guide you through the education of Baby Tate. Do ur own research, leave me alone!”
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After the discourse made its way to the blogs, Baby Tate returned to Twitter/X to apologize to her fans for even engaging in the topic and promised to return to what matters – the music.
“I wanna apologize to my fans for taking the focus off of what matters which is the music. Y’all know I’m a human at the end of the day but the bigger picture is so much more important than being right in a comment. I love y’all for always being by my side regardless.”
In a 2022 interview, HipHopDX’s 2022 Rising StarBaby Tate explained how Nicki Minaj and other women have had a major impact on her as a teen and in the early stages of her career. The Queens rapper bestowed a major cosign upon the Atlanta native after her submission to a social media challenge went viral.
“2019, is when I did the ‘Megatron’ Challenge,” Baby Tate said. “And getting that recognition from Nicki Minaj was freaking crazy for me because that’s someone that I’ve looked up to and been inspired by since I was 14 years old. So, that was definitely the biggest moment for me.”
Tate was in the middle of an appointment with a cosmetologist the moment she found out about Nicki’s approval of her verse for the “Megatron” Challenge — which she reposted on Instagram along with several other entries.
“I had posted my challenge and everybody was hating,” Baby Tate said. “Like, ‘Oh, she not going to repost you; she not going to repost you’. And I was like, ‘Y’all just wait.’ And I as in Little Five Points getting my lashes done. So, my eyes were closed; I was getting my lashes done, and then right when I’m finished, I open up my eyes, check my phone, and my notifications were going crazy.”
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She continued: “And I was like, ‘What is going on?’ I open up my phone and it’s like, Nicki Minaj.” “People are just tagging me under Nicki Minaj’s post like, ‘Oh my god, she posted you, she posted you.’ And I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ I was running around Little Five points so excited. So yeah, I was getting my lashes done, opened my eyes and that was the first thing that I saw.”
Baby Tate also named her mother, renowned soul musician Dionne Farris, as a foundational support system.
