Nicki Minaj Shares Roman Re-Up Album Release Date, Cover Art

[NelsonG]

By Gil Kaufman with reporting by Nadeska Alexis

Nicki Minaj.   has plenty going on at the moment besides her "American Idol" gig. The YMCMB rapper is gearing up to re-release her sophomore album, now pegged as Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded -- The REUP.

She began to pull back the curtain on Wednesday (October 11) when she revealed to fans that the album would drop next month. "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded -- THE REUP will be released on November 19, 2012 #THEREUP," she tweeted.

Minaj told MTV News that she wasn't interested in putting together a whole new album, but rather giving her old tracks another look through the re-release.

"Because we still have singles to roll out on that album ... for instance, 'Va Va Voom' was [just] added into rotation in the UK," she said of the latest single from the original album, which has sold nearly 671,000 copies to date according to Nielsen SoundScan. "I can't treat it like my stephchild just yet, but there's new kids on the way, so I kind of wanted to be fair to the old songs and be fair to the new songs."

As if that wasn't enough, she also posted a provocative teaser from the set of the album's first single, "The Boys"? in which she struts down a Roman-themed street in a white bodysuit, yellow hair, orange leggings and a lime green jacket as a raft of pink umbrella-toting sassy mansistants keep her out of the bright light.

Nicki said the rest of the new songs on the REUP are in the same vein as the "Boys" single. "It's a different feel, so I knew I had to put it on a separate disc the new songs, but it wasn't an entire new thought and new body of work," she said, explaining that had the fresh songs been totally different she would have wanted to give them their own space to breathe. "Because I like to give a lot of music and so that's why I didn't want to do a whole new project. Because then I would feel like it would be judged as a brand new thing and then I would need to add way more songs."

In addition to a glimpse of a candy-colored street scene she offered the Barbz a steamy shot of her taking a knee in front of Cassie as the two women frolic on a "Boys" set splashed with pink dots.

After teasing the Barbz for the whole morning, Minaj finally posted the album cover just before lunch on Thursday (October 11), revealing an image of her in a shoulder-length curly black wig and black bustier with an oversized diamond-shaped pendant necklace resting on her chest.

As for the quizzical look she's sporting in the image, Nicki explained, "LOL that face matches the lyrics on the REUP to a T!!!! LMAO, wait til u hear it ... u'll completely get it."

[url=http://rapfix.mtv.com/2012/10/11/nicki-minaj-roman-re-up-album-release-date-cover-art/]View the full article[/url]