On Nicki Minaj’s new song with Calvin Harris, “Skrt On Me,” she shouts out the names of a number of people — like Emily Blunt, Yao Ming, and Cash Money Records head Birdman. But the person most excited about his reference was New York Giants punter Brad Wing.
Nicki Minaj made good on her promise to name-drop Giants punter Brad Wing
“And I’m playing the field, Brad Wing the punt”
“And I’m playing the field, Brad Wing the punt,” she raps on the track.
This line was weeks in the making.
Minaj is a Giants fan — posting this excited tweet after the team won the Super Bowl in 2012:
But it still seems like a little bit of an odd reference — after all, punters are generally not the most celebrity-minded football players, although Wing did have this great, flashy celebration while scoring a touchdown in college:
But the real reason behind the shoutout from Minaj was a social media exchange the two had earlier this year. For a while, the internet’s Cool Kids™ were all doing the #NickiMinajChallenge — a hashtag that stemmed from Minaj herself stating “You bitches can’t even spell Prague” while boarding a private jet to the city.
So of course, Wing, the NFL’s sassiest punter, had to do a version of his own:
OK, so not quite as sassy as Minaj’s, but apparently it was enough to catch the hip-hop star’s eye. She later popped up in his Instagram comments to let him know she appreciated the reference ... and was thinking about one of her own.
And lo and behold, when the new Calvin Harris album dropped on Friday, buried in the middle of Track 7 was a shoutout to the NFL punter with the third most punting yards in 2016. Wing was certainly happy:
That’s the stuff hip-hop legends are made of.
