To top off an incredible year, Nicki Minaj features as the cover star on Billboard‘s No. 1s end-of-year issue. As always, she offers her candid opinions on a number of topics, including some of the more serious things that have been happening around the US this year, but stops short of naming her favourite musical artists because she doesn’t want to be “rude” if she misses anyone out. Nicki also reveals her wider acting ambitions, with an appearance in the upcoming Barbershop 3 film, as well as her “definite” plans for a new mixtape. Just yesterday, she set tongues wagging on social media after posting a photo of a massive diamond on her ring finger, and even though this interview was probably done well in advance, she kind of sets the record straight on this one as well. Check out some our favourite quotes below and head here to read the full interview.

Meryl Streep is one of her idols

She blows me away in just about everything she does. I love how she can go from The Devil Wears Prada to The Iron Lady — she’s so incredible in that. My dream would be to have that type of acting career, where I can do both things believably.

On her reading of Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise

It was the most spot-on poem that Nicki Minaj could have ever read… the poem is discussing sexiness, owning your sex appeal. “Does my sexiness upset you?/Does it come as a surprise/That I dance like I’ve got diamonds/At the meeting of my thighs?” My entire career has been that poem in a nutshell.

She may have answered everyone’s questions about that ring

He and I are not engaged. But he said he would like to give me three rings before we get married. My birthday’s coming up, and he better get the new one, because he got [the first one] for my last birthday. So let’s see what happens.

She’s “definitely” going to drop a new mixtape because she feels like she has to

“I want to touch a couple of beats that I wasn’t on. I could have bodied a lot of the records that came out in the last year. But the main thing is, I have to set an example for female rappers. I’m at the top of that food chain, and it’s important to lead by example.”