The re-release of NickiMinaj’s Beam Me Up Scotty breakout mixtape is most valuable as a reminder of how far rap music has come – and how it may pass her Last Friday’s re-release of Nicki Minaj’s breakout 2009 mixtape Beam Me Up Scotty comes as a growing number of popular artists open up their back-catalogs to streaming platforms. For artists whose profile grew at the height of the blog era, many of these early releases offer a look at important moments of experimentation. The Weeknd’s House of Balloons and Jhené Aiko’s Sailing Soul(s) mixtapeshit streaming in March; Lil Wayne’s iconic 2009 mixtape No Ceilings last August; a smattering of Drake loosies were collected into his Care Package compilation in 2019. The re-release of Beam Me Up Scotty comes with three new songs, plus much of the original tape, creating fertile ground for discovery and re-discovery across the Nicki Minaj fandom.