What if it could be Friday every day? That’s the question mega-star rapper Nicki Minaj poses, more or less, on her comeback album from last year, Pink Friday 2. The LP is a glorious clap-back to Minaj’s carefree early days as a striving rhymer in New York when she would sell mix-tapes from the back of a white BMW and was able to exert total control over her work. It was a celebration of early weekend excitement – sprinkled with the nostalgia Minaj felt for the hustle of her formative years as a musician.

“It’s probably the most excited I’ve been about an album release in a really long time. I’m happy that we’re not making my fans wait for another album like I’ve done in the past,” she said. “This one incorporates all the things people love about Nicki, but it also just has a way bigger sound.”

That bigger sound will be crossing the Atlantic this summer, with Minaj stopping off at Malahide Castle for a July 6 show. It is sure to be a highlight for devotees of wide-screen hip hop: Is there a better backdrop for Minaj’s dramatic music than a vast field framed by a stunning castle?

For Minaj, this latest tour will serve as both victory lap and comeback following the birth of her son. As she hits the road, she might also pause to reflect on how far she has come in the 14 years since the release of the original Pink Friday.

She may be the best-selling female rapper of all time but her music career began in less glamorous circumstances. Aged 19, the Trinidad-born, Queen-raised rhymer made music by night and worked as a waitress by day. However, the ferociousness that has always been her hallmark as a performer was not a good fit for the service industry, as soon became clear.

“They always want too much bread. That’s what bothered me,” she remembered of her days waitressing at Red Lobster, a popular chain of seafood restaurants. “You guys, please, if you go to Red Lobster, stop ordering extra bread.”

If she took on the world like a boxer trying to floor an opponent, it was with good reason. She was born in Port of Spain, capital of Trinidad and Tobago, but when she was three, her parents moved to New York, leaving her to be raised by her grandparents.

Two years later, having established themselves, they called for the rest of the family. Yet for Minaj – born  Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty  – America was not quite the land of opportunity. In the late 1980s, New York was in the grip of a crack epidemic that soon had her father in its clutches. She learned that she could not rely on the world to give her a break  – if she wanted to achieve greatness, she would have to make it happen through sheer willpower.

“I had tunnel fucking vision,” she told Vogue when describing her stage of mind at age 11. “I literally told everybody that by the time I turned 19, I would be just as famous as Halle Berry and Jada Pinkett, and no one could tell me any different. So when I went to auditions and didn’t get parts, I was shocked. I would sit by the phone thinking, I know they’re gonna call; everybody’s gonna love me and see how great I am. I didn’t get one callback. But at the same time I was like, ‘Eff this shit, I need money.’”

Despite being sacked from Red Lobster on three occasions, she saved enough to buy a second-hand BMW, from which she sold mix tapes. Her rappin – bare-boned yet rich in personality – brought her to the attention of Lil Wayne, the New Orleans performer then one of the hottest forces in the genre. In 2009, he signed her to his label, Young Money. A year later, Pink Friday was released, and Minaj was a star.

“I think of ‘Nicki Minaj’ more like the Superman suit,” Minaj has stated. “A person who you change into when you go into the telephone booth.”

She’s had her ups and downs since then – there have been beefs and social media rants, and not every record has had the same combustible quality as Pink Friday. However, she’s always stayed in the game, and for fans of underdogs, survivors, and world-class rappers, her Malahide Castle show will be an encounter to relish.

• Nicki Minaj headlines Malahide Castle, Dublin on July 6.

Read our full live special – including all the action at Musgrave Park, St Anne's Park, Malahide Castle, Marlay Park, Trinity College Dublin, Fairview Park and more – in the current issue of Hot Press.