Ahead of the release of her highly anticipated fourth studio album, Queen, Nicki Minaj has taken over her Essentials playlist on Apple Music and included a special note to her fans (with an album update), which you can read below:

My darlings!!! I have a huge surprise that I can’t share until the day before #Queen drops. So in the meantime, check out this playlist I made for you guys. I did #FEFE with my new BFF from BROOKLYN. He’s a little funny looking but he’s really sweet under all those tats. 😩 New York til da DEF!!!! Ha! Last time I teamed up with YG was for his remix to “My Hitta.” We recently performed #BigBank at the BET Awards and had a blast wit my dudes Big Sean and 2 Chainz. I have classic bops with all 3 of them so I’m including them on this list. I’m super excited about my recent collaboration with Ariana Grande. She’s one of the realest artists I’ve had the pleasure of working with. She couldn’t fly with me to Turks to shoot the #BedVideo so we shot her scenes in Malibu. We’re actually working on edit number 2 for the #BedVideo to include all the fun stuff we had to remove. I love “Ball For Me” with Post Malone. Not sure why he won’t release the video. 🗣 It’s DOPE!!! 😜 I hope you enjoy my playlist. Can’t wait for you guys to hear my 4th album QUEEN ON AUGUST 17!!!!!!!

Nicki Minaj Essentials Playlist on Apple Music — apple.co/NickiMinajEssentials

Originally set for June 15th, ‘Queen’ was delayed to allow Nicki to make some last minute tweaks to the album, finalize her tour, wrap her second scholarship program and film more content for her documentary. In addition to this most recent delay, Nicki proclaims there was a clearance issue with a song with a “legendary rapper” that sampled Tracy Chapman and would need to get approved.

“Tracy Chapman, can you please hit me,” Nicki tweeted. She also shared a poll with her fans, asking if she should “keep date/lose record” or “keep record/push date1 wk.” Y’all gon get mad tea on that song too,” Nicki said in a since-deleted tweet. “I’m high key lookin out for y’all chile. It’s sum GOODT TEA TOO. I’d be willing to sacrifice one more week for this tea! But I haven’t decided. Ugh. Love you ”

It’s been four years since The Pinkprint, whats another week? We look forward to listening to Queen on August 17th.