NICKI MINAJ EXPLAINS WHY SHE TURNED DOWN XXL'S FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR COVER!

Nicki Minaj said she told XXL magazine, "No disrespect, but no thanks." The sexy rapper declined the invitation to be a part of the 2010 Freshmen 10 issue because, like her Young Money compatriot Drake, she felt she should have been down last year
"Drake and I, we love XXL," she told us recently on the set of her video for "Massive Attack." "We just shot for XXL. With all due respect, we felt like we kinda had graduated from the freshman class. We felt that XXL missed the mark when they didn't put us on the cover prior to that. They have to pay for that. They can't say, 'Hey, get on the next one.' But we love XXL. That's like a hip-hop classic. So we said, 'Can we have something just a little bit more catered to us, so that we feel like we have still grown as artists, so we're not at all disrespecting the magazine?' They were cool with that.

"We didn't dictate, we just asked nicely," Nicki smiled.

"Technically, we were freshmen when they didn't put us on," Drake told ImFlashy.com in February. "I feel now it's just returning the favor."

Earlier this month, the publication revealed their Freshmen 10. The roster consisted of OJ Da Juiceman, Nipsey Hussle, Jay Rock, Pill, Donnis, Fashawn, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifah, Freddie Gibbs and Big Sean.