“Bem-vindo Nicki Minaj!” (Portuguese-to-English translation, Welcome Nicki Minaj!)
Reigning rap princess Nicki Minaj jetted in to Angola’s capital Luanda on Saturday, December 20, 2015 where she was invited to perform at a Christmas party hosted by the Unitel communications firm. She was sporting a fur jacket and distressed jeans.
She collected a reported $2million to perform. She agreed to perform despite protests by human rights activists. Angola is Africa’s second largest oil producer but it’s president José Eduardo dos Santos, 73, runs what critics call a corrupt government and leads a nation that suffers endemic poverty.
Unitel is partly owned by dos Santos’ family. The United Nations reports that more than a third of the country’s population of about 24 million people are living below the poverty line, and nearly 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day.
The president’s eldest daughter, Isabel dos Santos, 42, is Africa’s only female billionaire, the richest woman on the continent. Influential in her homeland and abroad, she has significant stakes in Angola’s strategic industries–banking, cement, diamonds and telecom.
Humanitarians call Minaj’s performance an endorsement of sorts of dos Santos’ “authoritarian rule” and accused the rapper of “callously taking money from a dictator.”
For Minaj, it was just another opportunity to perform for her fans. She shared a photo of herself with Isabel dos Santos that she captioned: “Oh no big deal…she’s just the 8th richest woman in the world.”
Minaj added in the caption: “GIRL POWER!!!!! This motivates me soooooooooo much!!!! S/O to any woman on a paper chase. Get your own!!!! Success is yours for the taking!!!!! #Angola thank u to the women who brought me out here as well.”
She performed in a sheer bedazzled jumpsuit on Instagram with the caption: “Oh hai, Angola. Ready for the show?”
