Nicki Minaj is running late. Two jumbo screens on either side of the main stage relay this message to the large and growing crowd awaiting their final Wireless headliner. Some take this as a sign to leave; we are on the third day of a festival that has been pushing 30 degrees all weekend, and it is a Sunday, after all. But most stay put, eager to see Minaj take the stage – even if it is for just 45 minutes.
The choice of waiting music is questionable, with the audience routinely mistaking the many pauses in Busta Rhymes’s “Break Ya Neck” as indications of the rapper’s imminent arrival. Not twice but three times does a premature swell of applause break out across Finsbury Park. When Minaj does arrive, the clock is ticking against her, and she wastes zero time getting to the hits.
