NEW YORK, USA (AP) — While the death of hip-hop has been a matter of debate in recent years, the demise of the star female emcee had been all but accepted.

There had always been at least one female rap act to contrast hip-hop’s defining male edge, from Queen Latifah to Lil Kim to Missy Elliott to Lauryn Hill. But in the past few years, women rappers were mere blips on the scene, and the occasional hit only underscored how weak the field had become.

Until now.

Nicki Minaj, the in-your-face, highly animated sex kitten and protege of rap prince Lil Wayne, has not only emerged as hip-hop’s leading female, she’s outdoing her male counterparts, too.

The 26-year-old Minaj has yet to release an official studio album, but she’s saturating all facets of hip-hop, from radio to mixtapes to magazines.

She’s costarred on songs with Lil Wayne, Drake, Usher, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera and Diddy, among many others. She’s also set to appear on Kanye West’s upcoming CD. With her collaborations, she’s landed 10 songs on Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop singles chart, including three in the Top 10; and Minaj’s had eight overall tunes on the Hot 100.

Her current single, the Annie Lennox-sampled Your Love, is spending its seventh week on top of the rap charts; it’s the first time a female act, as the lead artiste, has topped that chart since Lil Kim did in 2003. And Your Love is steadily climbing elsewhere, peaking at No 5 and No 14 on the R&B and Hot 100 charts, respectively.

Minaj, whose real name is Onika Maraj, was born in Trinidad, but grew up in Queens, NY. Lil Wayne discovered Minaj and signed her to his Cash Money imprint last year. She’s released three mixtapes and performs with the rap group Young Money, which includes Lil Wayne and Drake. The group’s 2009 album, the gold-selling We Are Young Money, has produced two Top 10 singles on the pop charts.

“Now that you have somebody that has pretty much her own style and does her own thing, people are gravitating toward it, so I think that makes her stick out ’cause she’s so different,” said Ludacris, who had Minaj rap on his hit My Chick Bad.

Minaj’s style is one that is playful, youthful and wild. She wears multicoloured wigs, sings and raps in various accents and boasts about her sexuality, even playing up bisexuality, though she’s said in a recent Vibe interview that she doesn’t date or sleep with women.

Like Minaj, a lot of female rappers reached their height in the mid 1990s to early 2000s as part of a hip-hop posse.

Junior MAFIA introduced Lil Kim, the multiplatinum diva who flaunted her sex appeal on the mic and in her music videos. Jay-Z introduced Foxy Brown, a feisty, skilled rapper who battled Lil Kim for rap’s top female spot in the ’90s. And Ruff Ryders, led by DMX, brought forth Eve.

50 Cent said the decline of those kind of posses has limited new female talent.

“There’s not as many female rappers because there’s not as many emerging crews,” 50 Cent explained. “When those new crews come up, there’s a potential for a female artiste when the head of that crew sees the idea of bringing someone to speak from a female perspective.”